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A PUEBLO GIEL SELLING CLAY IMAGES, 
(From a sketch by Gen. Wallace. ) 



THE LAND OF THE 



PUEBLOS. 



y 



SUSAX E. WALLACE. 
Author of •• The Storied Sea,'' '* Ginevra" etc. 



WITH ILLUSTR.VnONS. 



m 20 i8^.' r> / 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER 

1888. 






Pc- 



Copyrij-ht, 1888. 

BY 

THE PROVIDENT, BOOK COMPANY 



THE LAND OF THE PUEBLOS. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction. - - - 6 

I. Tlie Journey. - - 7 

11. Historic. - - - 14 

III. Laws and CustomSo - 37 

lY. The City of the Pueblos. - 53 

Y. Mexican Cottages. - - 62 

YI. To the Turquois Mines. - 69 

YII. To the Turquois Mines, continued. 80 

YIII. To the Turquois Mines, continued. 93 

IX. To the Turquois Mines, continued. lUl 

X. Among the Archives. — Things 

IN'ewandOld. - - 108 

XL Among the Archives. — A Love 

Letter. - - - 114 

XII. Among the Archives, continued. 121 

XIII. Among the Archives, continued. 127 

XI Y. Among the Archives, continued. 134 

XY. The Jornada Del Muerto. - 140 

XYI. Something about the Apache. 152 

XYIL Old Miners. - - 160 

XYIII. The New Miners. - - 167 

XIX. The Honest Miner. - 175 

XX. The Assayers. - - - 180 

XXL The Euby Silver Mine.~A True 

Story. - - - 188 

XXII. The Euby Silver Mine, continued. 196 

XXIIL Mine Experience. - - 203 

XXIY. The Euins of Montezuma's Palace. 218 

XXY. To the Casas Grandes. - - 234 

XX VL A Frontier Idyl. - - 248 

XXYII. The Pimos. - - - 261 



^ 



LIST OF ILLUSTEATIOKS. 



A Pueblo Girl Selling Clay ImageB, Frontispiece 

El Palacio, Santa Fe, - - - - 14 

Living Pueblo (New Mexico), - - - 44 

Zuni War Club, Dance Ornaments, etc., - - 46 

Zuiii Basketry, and Toy Cradles, - - 130 

Zuni Water Vases, - - - - - 132 

Navajo Indian, with Silver Ornaments, - 154 

Zuiii Effigies, - - - - - 200 

Tesuke Water Vases, - - - - 234 

Abandoned Pueblo, - - - - - 288 

Zuni Paint and Condiment Cups, - - 244 

Pueblo Wristlets, Moccasins, etc., - - - 246 



INTRODUCTION. 

Some years ago these writings appeared in the 
Independent, Atlantic Monthly, and The Tribune. 
My thanks are with the respective editors by 
whose courtesy they assume this altered shape. 
Several were published in a certain magazine 
which died young. I send cordial greeting to its 
chief, and shed a few drops of ink over the name- 
less one, loved of the gods. Fain would I believe 
no action of mine had power to hasten that early 
and untimely end. The hurrying march in 
which all must join, is so rapid, my first audience 
is quite out of hearing ; my first inklings have 
faded from the memory of readers except the 
one, beloved of my soul, who asks why the old 
Pueblo papers have not been reprinted. Ah, 
what exquisite flattery ! 

And just here I kiss the fair hands unseen 
which send such gracious messages. Dropping 
flowers in my way, pansies for thoughts, rosemary 
for remembrance, has made them the whiter and 
sweeter forevermore. 

The Montezuma myth is so interwoven with 
the past and future of the Indians that every allu- 
sion to their history and religion must of neces- 
sity contain the revered name. The repetition 
in the compositions now collected did not appear 
so glaringly when they were detached. My first 
impulse was to omit such passages, but second 
thought sends out the letters as when first offered 
to the public, with all their imperfections (a good 
many), on their head. 

It would be affectation to make secret what 
every writer understands : (and what reader have 
I who is not a writer ?j the pleasure with which 

5 



6 Introduction. 

I gather my scattered children under a perma- 
nent cover. Family resemblance is strong 
enough to identify them anywhere, but that is no 
reason why they should not appear in shape 
which the world will little heed nor long remem- 
ber. They were written when the ancient Palace 
I have tried to describe, was the residence of the 
Governor of New Mexico ; and, in turning the 
leaves after seven years, I am touched by the 
same feeling which then moved me to pipe my 
little songs. Again I feel the deep solitude of 
the mountains, taste the all pervading alkali dust, 
and hear the sand-storm beating like sleet against 
the window panes. The best revv^ard they 
brought were friendly voices answering in the 
blue distance across the Sierras, and cheering me 
with thought that I had won the place of wel- 
come visitor in happy homes my feet may never 
enter; that through the bitter winter my room 
was kept by warm firesides under the evening 
lamp — there where the treasured books lie from 
day to day, looking like Elia's old familiar faces. 
Dear to the heart, beautiful and forever young, 
are the unseen friends whose presence becomes 
an abiding consciousness to the writer. 

Crawfordsville, Indiana, March, 1888. 



THE UND OF THE PUEBLOS. 



CHAPTER I, 

THE JOURNEY. 



I AM 6,000 feet nearer the sky than you are. 
Come to the sweet and lonely valley in the West 
where, free from care and toil, the weary soul 
may rest ; where there are neither railroads, manu- 
factures, nor common schools ; and, so little is 
expected of us in the way of public spirit, we 
almost venture to do as we please, and forget we 
should vote, and see to it that the Republic does 
not go to the "demnition bow-wows." 

Santa Fe is precisely what the ancient Pueblos 
called it — "the dancing -ground of the sun." The 
white rays quiver like light on restless waters or 
on mirrors, and night is only a shaded day. In 
our summer camp among the foothills we need 
no tents. It is glorious with stars of the first 
magnitude, that hang low in a spotless sky, free 
from fog, mist, or even dew ; not so much as a mote 
between us and the shining floor of heaven. 

The star-patterns of my coverlet are older than 
the figures which delighted our grandmothers. 
They come out not one by one, as in our skies ; 
but flash suddenly through the blue. Day and 
night make a brief parting. The short twilight 
closes, and lo ! in the chambers of the east Orion, 
belted with jewels, Arcturus and his sons, and 
even the dim lost Pleiad, forgetting the ruins of 
old Troy, brightens again. Wrapped in soft, 
furry robes, we lie on the quiet bosom of Mother 
Earth in sleep, dreamless and restful as the 
slumber of those who wake in Paradise. I can- 

7 



8 The Land of the Pueblos. 

not say, with the enthusiastic land-speculator: 
"Ladies and gentlemen, in this highly-favored re- 
gion the Moon is always at its full." But her 
face is so fair and bright I am her avowed adorer, 
and many a thousand miles from 

' a ' the steep head of old Latmos," 

she stoops above the sleeping lover, to kiss her 
sweetest. 

Old travelers tell you the country is like Pales- 
tine; but it is like nothing outside of the Gar- 
den eastward in Eden. New Mexico is a slice of 
old Mexico ; that is, a western section of Spain. 
" Who knows but you may catch sight of some 
of your castles there ! " Such was the invitation 
which came to me across the Rocky Mountains. 
I hearkened to the voice of the " charmer, charm- 
ing never so wisely," and, " fleeing from incessant 
life," started on a journey of two thousand miles. 
It was in the mild September, and the Mississipi 
Valley flamed with banners crimson, golden, in 
which Autumn shrouded the faded face of the 
dead Summer. 

We sped through Ohio, land of lovely women ; 
past Peoria, fair Prairie City, the smoke of whose 
twenty-three distilleries obscures the spires of her 
churches beautiful as uplifted hands at prayer ; 
through the bridge at St. Louis, where the fairies 
and giants once worked together, making a cross- 
ing over the great Father of Waters; on we 
went, journeying by night and by day. 

Oh ! the horror of the chamber of torture 
known to the hapless victims as the sleeping-car. 
The gay conductor, in gorgeous uniform, told us, 
in an easy, off-hand manner, a man had been 
found dead in one of the top berths some weeks 
before. I only wondered any who ventured there 
cam 3 out alive. " Each in his narrow cell for- 
ever laid " went through my mind as I lay down 



The Journey. 9 

to wakefulness and unrest in blankets filled with 
vermin and disease. The passengers were the 
same you always journey with : the young couple, 
tender and warm; the old couple, tough and 
cool ; laughing girls, in fluffy curls and blue rib- 
bons, who found a world of pleasure in pockets 
full of photographs ; the good baby, that never 
cried, and the bad baby, that cried at nothing ; 
the fussy woman everybody hated, who counted 
her bundles every half hour, wanted the window 
up, and no sooner was it raised than she wanted 
it down again. There, too, was the invalid in 
every train on the Pacific Road. A college grad- 
uate of last year, poor, ambitious, crowded four 
years' study into three, broke down, and now the 
constant cough tells the rest of the old tale. He 
was attended by a young sister, warm and rosy 
as he was pallid and chill, who in the most ap- 
pealing way took each one of us into her confi- 
dence, and told how Rob had picked up every 
step of the road since they left Sandusky. When 
we entered the wide, monotonous waste between 
Missouri and Colorado, how the brave girl would 
try to cheer the boy with riddles, stories, games, 
muffle him in her furs, slap his cold hands, and 
lay her red, ripe cheek to his, as if she were 
hushing a baby. In the drollest way, she resist- 
ed the blandishments of the vegetable ivory 
man, the stem-winder, the peanut vender, and 
with tragic gesture waved off the peddler of the 
" Adventures of Sally Maclntire, who was Cap- 
tured by the Dacotahs. A Tale of Horror and of 
Blood!" When the dazzling conductor illumi- 
nated the passage of the car with his Kohinoor 
sleeve-buttons and evening-star breastpin, he 
would stop beside the sick boy, and in a fresh, 
breezy way seemed to throw out a morning 
atmosphere of bracing air, as well as hopeful 
words. "Now," he would say, twirling his 



lo The Land of the Pueblos. 

thumb in a Pactolian chain which streamed across 
his breast and emptied into and overflowed a 
watch-pocket bulgy with poorly hid treasure — 
" now we are coming to a place fit to live in. 
When you get to Pike's Peak, you will be 7,000 
feet above the level of the sea. It's like breath- 
ing champagne. You'll come up like a cork ; 
keep house in a snug cottage ; go home in the 
Spring so fat you can hardly see out of your 
eyes." Vain words. The poor boy knew, and 
we knew, he was fast nearing the awful shadow 
which every man born of woman must enter 
alone. The mighty hand was on him. He was 
going to Colorado Springs only to die. We 
parted at La Junta, crowding the windows, gayly 
waving good-byes. I can never forget my last 
sight of the sweet sister, with her outspread 
shawl sheltering him from the crisp wind, which 
blew from every direction at once, as I have seen 
a mother-bird flutter round her helpless nestlings. 
The good baby held up its sooty, chubby hand 
saying, "■ ta, ta," as long as they were in sight, 
and the mothers smiled tearfully to each other 
when a rough miner from the Black Hills said, 
softly, as if talking to himself: "I reckon, if 
that young woman's dress was unbuttoned, wings 
would fly out." 

Five hundred miles across plains level as the 
sea, treeless, waterless, after leaving the Arkan- 
sas River. Part of our road lay along the old 
California trail, the weary, weary way the first 
gold-seekers trod, making but twenty miles a 
day. Under ceaseless sunshine, against pitiless 
wind, it is not strange that years afterward their 
march was readily tracked by graves, not always 
inviolate from the prairie wolf. The stiff buffalo- 
grass rose behind the first explorers, and even 
horses and cattle left no trail. They took their 
course by the sun, shooting an arrow before 



The Journey. II 

them ; before reaching the first arrow they shot 
another ; and in this manner marched the entire 
route up to the place where they found water 
and encamped. 

Occasionally we saw a herdsman's hut stand- 
ing in the level expanse, lonely as a lighthouse; 
nothing else in the blank and dreary desert but 
the railroad track, straight as a rule, narrow as a 
thread, and its attendant telegraph, precious in 
our sight as a string of Lothair pearls. Not a 
stick or stone in a hundred miles. Only the sky, 
and the earth, clothed with low grass -like moss, 
the stiff sage-brush, and a vile trailing cactus, 
which crawls over the ground like hairy green 
snakes. To be left in such a spot would be like 
seeing the ship sail off leaving us afloat in fath- 
omless and unknown seas. 

After a day seeming long as many a month 
has, the fine pure air of Colorado touched with 
cooling balm our tired, dusty faces ; and against 
the loveliest sunset sky, in a heavenly radiance, 
all amber and carmine, the Spanish peaks majes- 
tically saluted us. 

Oh ! the glory of that sight ! Two lone sum- 
mits, remote, inaccessible ; the snowy, the far-off 
mountains of poetry and picture. Take all the 
songs the immortcil singers have sung in praise 
of Alpine heights and lay them at their feet ; it 
yet would be an offering unworthy their surpass- 
ing loveliness. Now we lost sight of them ; now 
they came again ; then vanished in the evening 
dusk, dropped down from Heaven like the Baby- 
lonish curtain of purple and gold which veiled 
the Holy of Holies from profane eyes. Fairest of 
earthly shows that have blest my waking vision, 
they stand alone in memory, not to fade from it 
till all fades. 

At Tr;nidad we left the luxury of steam, and 
came down to the territorial conveyance. Think, 



12 The Land of the Pueblos. 

dear reader, of two days and a night on a buck- 
board — an instrument of torture deadly as was 
ever used in the days of Torquemada, and had 
anything its equal been resorted to then there 
would have been {<t\N heretics. 

It is a low-wheeled affair floored with slats, 
the springs under the seats so weak that at the 
least jolt they smite together with a horrible 
blow, which is the more emphatic when over- 
loaded, as when we crossed the line which 
bounds " the most desirable of all the Territories." 
Our night was without a stop, except to change 
horses. Jolt, jolt ; bang, bang ; cold to the mar- 
row, though huddled under buffalo robes and 
heavy blankets. How welcome the warmth of 
the sun on our stiffened limbs ; and the early 
breeze, sweet and fresh as airs across Eden when 
the evening and the morning were the first day! 
It has a sustaining quality which almost serves 
for food and sleep. There journeyed with us in 
the white moonshine spectres, shadowy, ghost- 
like. Now the sun comes up, we see they are 
kingly mountains, wrapped in robes of royal pur- 
ple and wearing crowns of gold. The atmos- 
phere is so refined and clear, they appear close 
beside us; but the driver says they are forty 
miles away. Noon comes on, hot and still, with 
a desert scorch. We journey over a road sur- 
prisingly free of stones ; across a blank and col- 
orless plain, bounded by mountain-walls which 
stand grim and stark like bastions of stone. 
Another night and another long day. The driver 
is not on his high horse now. He has no funny 
stories of the grizzly and cinnamon bear, which he 
assures us can climb trees, sticking their claws 
in the bark, easily as the telegraph-mender, with 
clamps on his feet, goes up the pole. Along the 
roadside stretch beautiful park-like intervales, 
studded with dwarf pines, that appear planted at 
regular distances. 



The Journey. 13 

Will the day never end ? I have no voice nor 
spirit, and begin to think the wayside crosses 
mark graves of travelers, murdered, not by assas- 
sins, but by the buckboard ; and feebly clutch my 
fellow-sufferer, and shake about in a limp, dis- 
tracted way, pitying myself, as though I were 
somebody else. I can hold out no longer. But 
wake up ! Wake up ! This is the home-stretch. 
The horses know it and dash across a little 
brook which they tell me is the Rio Santa Fe. 

Pleasant the sound of running water; tender 
the light of the evening on the mountains which 
encircle the ancient capital of the Pueblos. As 
we approach, it is invested with indescribable 
romance, the poetic glamor which hovers about 
all places to us foreign, new, and strange. We go 
through a straggling suburb of low, dark adobe 
houses. How comfortless they look ! Two Mex- 
icans are jabbering and gesticulating, evidently 
in a quarrel. Swarthy women, with dismal old 
black shawls over their heads, sit in the porches. 
I hear the ''Maiden's Prayer" thumped on a poor 
piano. How foolish in me to think that I could 
escape the sound of that feeble petition ! Lights 
stream through narrow windows, sunk in deep case- 
ments, and a childish voice, strangely at variance 
with the words, is singing "Silver Threads among 
the Gold " to the twanging of a weak guitar. 
Softly the convent-bells are ringing a gracious 
welcome to the worn-out traveler. The narrow 
streets are scarcely wide enough for two wagons 
to pass. The mud walls are high and dark. 
W^e reach the open Plaza. Long one-story adobe 
houses front it on every side. And this is the 
historic city ! Older than our government, older 
than the Spanish Conquest, it looks older than 
the hills surrounding it, and worn-out besides. 
" El Fonda P^ shouts the driver, as we stop before 
the hotel.' A voice, foreign yet familiar, gayly 



14 The Land of the Pueblos. 

answers : ''Ah! Senora, a los pieds de ustedy 
At last, at last, I am not of this time nor of 
this continent; but away, away across the sea, 
in the land of dreams and visions, " renowned, 
romantic Spain." 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORIC. 

I USED to think Fernandina was the sleepiest 
place in the world, but that was before I had seen 
Santa Fe. The drowsy old town, lying in a 
sandy valley inclosed on three sides by mountain 
walls, is built of adobes laid in one-story houses, 
and resembles an extensive brick-yard, with 
scattered sunburnt kilns ready for the fire. The 
approach in midwinter, when snow, deep on the 
mountains, rests in ragged patches on the red soil 
of New Mexico, is to the last degree dishearten- 
ing to the traveler entering narrow streets which 
appear mere lanes. Yet, dirty and unkept, 
swarming with hungry dogs, it has the charm of 
foreign flavor, and, like San Antonio, retains 
some portion of the grace which long lingers 
about, if indeed it ever forsakes, the spot where 
Spain has held rule for centuries, and the soft 
syllables of the Spanish tongue are yet heard. 

It was a primeval stronghold before the Span- 
ish conquest, and a town of some importance to 
the white race when Pennsylvania was a wilder- 
ness, and the first Dutch governor was slowly 
drilling the Knickerbocker ancestry in the diffi- 
cult evolution of marching round the town pump. 
Once the capital and centre of the Pueblo king- 



Historic. 15 

dom, it is rich in historic interest, and the 
archives of the Territory, kept, or rather neg- 
lected, in the leaky old Palacio del Gobernador, 
where I write, hold treasure well worth the seek- 
ing of student and antiquary. The building 
itself has a history full of pathos and stirring 
incident as the ancient fort of St. Augustine, and 
is older than that venerable pile. It had been 
the palace of the Pueblos immemorially before 
the holy name Santa Fe was given in baptism of 
blood by the Spanish conquerors; palace of the 
Mexicans after they broke away from the crown ; 
and palace ever since its occupation by El Gringo. 
In the stormy scenes of the seventeenth century 
it withstood several sieges; was repeatedly lost 
and won, as the white man or the red held the 
victory. Who shall say how many and how dark 
the crimes hidden within these dreary earthen 
walls ? 

Hawthorne, in a strain of tender gayety, 
laments the lack of the poetic element in our 
dear native land, where there is no shadow, no 
mystery, no antiquity, no picturesque and gloomy 
wrong, nor anything but commonplace prosperity 
in broad and simple daylight. Here is every 
requisite of romance, — the enchantment of dis- 
tance, the charm of the unknown, — and, in 
shadowy mists of more than three hundred years, 
imagination may flower out in fancies rich and 
strange. Many a picturesque and gloomy wrong 
is recorded in mouldy chronicles, of the fireside 
tragedies enacted when a peaceful, simple people 
were driven from their homes by the Spaniard, 
made ferocious by his greed of gold and con- 
quest; and the cross was planted, and sweet 
hymns to Mary and her Son were chanted on 
hearths slippery with the blood of men guilty 
only of the sin of defending them. 

Four hundred years ago the Pueblo Indians 



l6 The Land of the Pueblos, 

were freeholders of the vast unmapped domain 
lying between the Rio Pecos and the Gila, and 
their separate communities, dense and self-sup- 
porting, were dotted over the fertile valleys of 
Utah and Colorado, and stretched as far south as 
Chihuahua, Mexico. Bounded by rigid conserv- 
atism as a wall, in all these ages they have under- 
gone slight change by contact with the white 
race, and are yet a peculiar people, distinct from 
the other aboriginal tribes of this continent as 
the Jews are from the other races in Christendom. 
The story of these least known citizens of the 
United States takes us back to the days of 
Charles V. and the " spacious times of great 
Elizabeth." 

About the year 1528 an exploring expedition 
set out, by order of the king of Spain, from San 
Domingo to invade Florida, a name then loosely 
given to the wide area between the bay of Fer- 
nandina and the Mississippi River. It was 
commanded by Pamfilo de Narvaez ; the same 
it will be remembered, who had been sent by the 
jealous governor of Cuba to capture Cortez, and 
who, after having declared him an outlaw, was 
himself easily defeated. His troops deserted to 
the victorious banner, and when brought before 
the man he had promised to arrest, Narvaez said, 
** Esteem yourself fortunate, Senor Cortez, that 
you have taken me prisoner." The conqueror 
replied, with proud humility and with truth, "It 
is the least of the things I have done in Mexico." 

This anecdote illustrates the haughty and 
defiant spirit of the general who sailed for battle 
gayly as to a regatta, with a fleet of five vessels 
and about six hundred men, of whom eighty 
were mounted. He carried blood-hounds to 
track natives, chains and branding-irons for cap- 
tives ; was clothed with full powers to kill, burn, 
plunder, enslave; and was appointed governor 



Historic. ly 

over all the country he might reduce to posses- 
sion. 

The leader and his command perished by ship- 
wreck and disasters, all but four. Among the 
survivors was one Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca, 
treasurer for the king and high sheriff, who is de- 
scribed in the annals of that period as having the 
most beautiful and noble figure of the conquerors 
of the New World ; and in the best days of 
chivalry his valor on the battle-field, his resolution 
in danger, his constancy and resignation in hard- 
ship, won for him the proud title " Illustrious 
Warrior." Ten years he, with three companions, 
rambled to and fro between the Atlantic and Gulf 
of California. The plain statement of their priva- 
tions and miseries must of necessity be filled with 
marvels ; that of Cabeca de Vaca, duly attested 
and sworn to, is weakened by wild exaggerations, 
and the Relacion of this Western Ulysses is 
touched with high colorings and embellished with 
fantastic fables equal to the moving accidents by 
flood and field of the heroic king of Ithaca. He 
tells of famishing with hunger till they devoured 
dogs with relish ; of marching " without water and 
without way" among savages of giant stature, 
dressed in robes, ''with wrought ties of lion-skin, 
making a brave show, — the women dressed in 
wool that grows on trees ; " * of meeting cyclopean 
tribes, who had the sight of but one eye ; of 
being enslaved and going naked — "as we were 
unaccustomed to being so, twice a year we cast 
our skin, like serpents ;" of his escape, and, after 
living six years with friendly Indians, of being 
again made captive by barbarians, who amused 
themselves by pulling out his beard and beating 
him cruelly; of living on the strange fruits of 
mezquit and prickly-pear; of mosquitoes, whose 
bite made men appear to have ''the plagues of 

* The hanging moss. Tillandsia usneoides. 
2 



The Land of the Pueblos. 

holy Lazarus ; " of herds of wonderful cows, with 
hair an inch thick, frizzled and resembling wool, 
roaming over boundless plains. 

Holding his course northwest, he came to a 
people " with fixed habitations of great size, made 
of earth, along a river which runs between two 
ridges ;" and here we have tlie earliest record of 
Pueblo or Town Indians, so named as distin- 
guished from nomads or hunting tribes, dwelling 
in lodges of buffalo-skin and boughs. It is diffi- 
cult to trace his course along the nameless rivers 
of Texas; he must have ascended the Red River 
and then struck across to the Canadian, which 
runs for miles through a deep canon, in which are 
yet seen extensive ruins of ancient cities. Un- 
doubtedly he was then among the Pueblo 
Indians, in the northwestern part of New 
Mexico. He described them as an intelligent 
race, with fine persons, possessing great strength, 
and gave them the name ''Cow Nation," because 
of the immense number of buffaloes killed in 
their country and along the river for fifty leagues. 
The region was very populous, and throughout 
were signs of a better civilization. The women 
were better treated and better clad; "they had 
shawls of cotton;^ their dress was a skirt of 
cotton that came to the knees, and skirts of 
dressed deer-skins to the ground, opened in front 
and fastened with leather straps. They washed 
their clothes Avith a certain soapy root which 
cleansed them well, f They also wore shoes." 
This is the first account of the natives of that 
country wearing covering on their feet — doubt- 
less the moccasins still worn by them. 

The gentle savages hailed the white men as 
children of the sun, and, in adoration, brought 

* Made of the fibre of the maguey, or American aloe. 

t The ;root of the Yucca aloifolia. a spongy, fibrous mass, con- 
taining gelatinous and alkaline matter. It grows in most parts of 
New Mexico, where it is called amole, and is used instead of soap 
for washing. 



Historic. 19 

their blind to have their eyes opened, their sick 
that, by the laying on of hands, they might be 
healed. Mothers brought little children for bless- 
ings, and many humbly sought but to touch their 
garments, believing virtue Vvould pass out of 
them. The rude hospitality was freely accepted; 
the sons of the morning feasted on venison, 
pumpkins, maize bread, the fruit of the prickly- 
pear; and, refreshed by the banquet, made their 
worshipers understand that they too were suffer- 
ing with a disease of the heart, which nothing 
but gold and precious stones could cure. The 
Pueblos were then as now a race depending on 
agriculture rather than the chase, and were in 
distress because rain had not fallen in two years, 
and all the corn they had planted had been eaten 
by moles. They were afraid to plant again until 
it rained, lest they should lose the little seed left, 
and begged the lair gods " to tell the sky to 
rain ; " which the celestial visitants obligingly did, 
and, in answer to the prayers of the red men, 
breathed on their buffalo skins, and bestowed a 
farewell blessing upon them at parting. 

They again pushed westward in search of 
riches, always further on, crossed a portion of the 
Llano Estacado, or Staked Plain, and traveled 
'• for a hundred leagues through a thickly settled 
country, with towns of earth abounding in maize 
and beans." Hares were very numerous. When 
one was started the Indians would attack him 
with clubs, driving him from one to another till 
he was killed or captured.^ 

Everywhere they found order, thrift, friendly 
welcome. The Indians gave Cabeca de Vaca fine 
turquoises, buffalo robes, or, as he calls them, 

* This is still a favorite sport among the Pueblos. They sally 
out from their villages, mounted on burros, to the prairies, where 
rabbits are started from their coverts, when the horsemen chase 
them ; using clubs, which they throw with great precision, like the 
boomerang of the savage Australian. In this way they catch a 
great many. It is very exciting, and is carried on amid yells and 
much good-natured laughter. 



20 The Land of the Pueblos. 

" blankets of cow skins," and fine emeralds made 
into arrow-heads, very precious, held sacred, and 
used only in dances and celebrations. They said 
these jewels had been received in exchange for 
bunches of plumes and the bright feathers of par- 
rots ; they were brought a long distance from 
lofty mountains in the north, where were crowded 
cities of very large and strong houses.* 

It appears from his Rclacion that Cabeca de 
Vaca passed over the entire Territory of New 
Mexico, went down the Gila to a point near its 
mouth, struck across to the river San Miguel, 
thence to Culiacan, and so on to Mexico, where 
the four wanderers, worn by hardship, gaunt and 
spectral by famine, were received with distinction 
by the Viceroy, Mendoza, and Cortez, Marquis of 
the Valley. 

The venturesome hero was summoned to Val- 
ladolid to appear before Charles V., and hastened 
to lay at the feet of his imperial master the gath- 
ered spoil which cost ten years of life : the hide 
of a bison, a few valueless stones resembling 
emerald, and a handful of worthless turquoises. 

Before he set sail for Spain, Cabeca de Vaca 
told his marvelous story to sympathetic and 
eager listeners; and, besides, airy rumors had 
already floated down the valley of Anahuac of a 
land toward the north where seven high-walled 
cities, " the Seven Cities of Cibola," were de- 
fended by impregnable outworks. They were 
least among the provinces, where were countless 
greater cities of houses built with numerous 
stories, ** lighted by jcAvels," and containing treas- 
ure stored away in secret rooms, rich as Atahual- 
pa's ransom. Various rovers gave accounts of 
natives clad in curious raiment, richer and softer 

* In the Navajo countrj^, between the San Juan and Colorado 
Chiquito, are found quantities of beautiful garnets and a green 
stone resembling emerald. It abounds in ruins of pueblos capable 
of holding many thousand souls: in all probability the emeralds 
presented to De Vaca came from that region. 



Historic. 21 

than Utrecht velvet, who wore priceless gems, 
whole ropes and chains of turquoises, in ignor- 
ance of their actual value. One of these strag- 
glers, an Indian, reported that the houses '* of 
many lofts" were made of lime and stone; he 
had seen them " with these eyes." The gates 
and sm.aller pillars of the principal ones were of 
turquoise, and their princes were served by beau- 
tiful girls, whom they enslaved; and their spear- 
heads, drinking-cups, and ornamental vessels 
were of pure gold. There were Vv^ondrous tales, 
too, of opal mountains,"^ lifted high in an atmos- 
phere of such amazing clearness that they could 
be seen at vast distances; of valleys glittering 
with garnets and beryls; of clear streams of 
water flowing over silver sands ; of strange flora ; 
of the shaggy buffalo ; of the fearful serpent with 
castanets in its tail ;t of a bird like the peacock ; J 
and a Llano, broad as the great desert of Africa, 
over which hovered a mirage more dazzling than 
the Fata Morgana, more delusive than the spec- 
tre of the Brocken. 

A friar named Niza, with one of the compan- 
ions of Cabeca de Vaca, went out " to explore 
the country " three hundred leagues away, to a 
city they called Cibola,§ clearly identified as old 
Zuni, on a river of the same name, one hundred 
and eighty miles northwest of Santa Fe. This 
flighty reporter testified to Mendoza that he had 
been in the cities of Cibola, and had seen the 
turquoise columns and soft, feathery cloaks of 
those who dwelt in king's palaces. Their houses 
were made of stone, several stories high with flat 
roofs, arranged in good order; they possessed 
many emeralds and precious stones, but valued 

* The name still attaches to a snowy range southwest of Santa 
Fe. 

1 Rattlesnake. 

X Turkey. 

§ Indian name for buffalo. New Mexico was known to the early 
Spaniards as the Buffalo Province. 



22 The Land of the Pueblos. 

turquoises above all others. They had vessels of 
gold and silver more abundant than in Peru. 

" Following as the Holy Ghost did lead," he 
ascended a mountain, from which he surveyed 
the promised land with a speculator's eyes ; then, 
with the help of friendly Indians, he raised a 
heap of stones, set up a cross, the symbol of 
taking possession, and under the text, *' The 
heathen are given as an inheritance," named the 
province " El Nuevo Regno de San Francisco " 
(the New Kingdom of St. Francis) ; and from 
that day to this San Francisco has been the 
patron saint of New Mexico. 

In our prosaic age of doubt and question it is 
hard to understand the faith with which sane men 
trusted these bold falsehoods. They were mad 
with the lust of gold and passion for adv^enture ; 
and valiant cavaliers who had won renown in the 
battles of the Moor among the mountains of 
Andalusia, and had seen the silver cross of Fer- 
dinand raised above the red towers of the Alham- 
bra, now turned their brave swords against the 
feeble natives of the New World. Less than half 
a century had gone by since the discovery of 
America ; the conquests of Pizarro and Cortez 
were fresh in men's minds, and an expedition 
containing the enchanting quality called hazard 
was soon organized. Illustrious noblemen sold 
their vineyards and mortgaged their estates to fit 
the adventurers out, assured they v/ould never 
need more gold than they would bring back from 
the true El Dorado. The young men saw vis- 
ions ; the old men dreamed dreams ; volunteers 
flocked to the familiar standards ; and an army 
was soon ready ''to discover and subdue to the 
crown of Spain the Seven Cities of Cibola." 

Francisco Vasquez Coronado, who left a lovely 
young wife and great wealth to lead the roman- 
tic enterprise, was proclaimed captain-general ; 



Historic. 23 

and Castenada, historian of the campaign, writes, 
** I doubt whether there has ever been collected 
in the Indies so brilliant a troop." The whole 
force numbered fifteen hundred men and one 
thousand horses ; sheep and cows were driven 
along to supply the new settlements in fairy- 
land. The army mustered in Compostella, un- 
der no shadow darker than the wavy folds of the 
royal banner, and one fair spring morning, the 
day after Easter, 1540, marched out in armor 
burnished high, with roll of drums, the joyful ap- 
peal of bugles, and all the pomp and circum- 
stance the old Spaniard loved so well. The 
proud cavaliers, ** very gallant in silk upon silk," 
kindled with enthusiasm., and answered with loud 
shouts the cheers of the people who thronged 
the house-tops. The viceroy led the army two 
days on the march, exhorted the soldiers to 
obedience and discipline, and returned to await 
reports. 

When the mind is prepared for wonders the 
wonderful is sure to appear, and time fails to tell 
what prodigies the high-born gentlemen beheld : 
the Indians of monstrous size, so tall the tallest 
Spaniard could reach no higher than their breasts ; 
a unicorn, which escaped their chase. "His 
horn, found in a deep ravine, was a fathom and 
a half in length ; the base was thick as one's 
thigh ; it resembled in shape a goat's horn, and 
was a curious thing." They were the first white 
men who looked down the gloomy caiion of the 
Colorado to the black rushing river, walled by 
sheer precipices fifteen hundred feet high. Two 
men tried to descend its steep sides. They 
climbed down perhaps a quarter of the way, 
when they were stopped by a rock v/hich seemed 
from above no greater than a man, but which in 
reality was higher than the top of the cathedral 
tower at Seville. They passed places where "the 



24 The Lciftd of the Piiebios. 

earth trembled like a drum, and ashes boiled in 
a manner truly infernal ; " watched magnetic 
stones roll together of their own accord ; and 
suffered under a storm of hail -stones, ''large as 
porringers," which indented their helmets, 
wounded the men, broke their dishes, and cover- 
ed the ground to the depth of a foot and a half 
with ice-balls ; and the wind raised the horses 
off their feet, and dashed them against the sides 
of the ravine. They fought many tribes of In- 
dians, and were relieved to meet none who were 
"man-eaters and none anthropophagi."* 

The route of Coronado is traced Vvith tolerable 
clearness up the Colorado to the Gila ; up the 
Gila to the Casa Grande, called Chichiticale, or 
Red House, standing more than three centuries 
ago, as it does now, in a mezquit jungle on the 
edge of the desert ; ''and," writes his secretary, 
" our general was above all distressed at finding 
this Chichiticale, of which so much had been 
said, dwindled down to one mud house, in ruins 
and roofless, but which seemed to have been for- 
tified." With true Spanish philosophy, he cov- 
ered his disappointment, and gave the place an 
alluring mystery, with the idea that "this house, 
built of red earth, was the work of a civilized 
people come from a distance." And into the 
distance he went, through Arizona, the lower 
border of Colorado, and turned southeast to 
where Santa Fe now stands, then the central 
stronghold of the Pueblo empire. They fought 
and marched, destroyed villages, leveled the poor 
temples of the heathen, planted the cross, and 
sang thanksgiving hymns over innumerable souls 

* Castenada's Narrative covered 147 MS. pages, written on paper 
in characters of the times, and rolled in parchment. It was pre- 
served in the colIecti(m of D'Uguina, Paris, was translated and 
published in French by H.T. Campans, in 1838, and now lies before 
me. It is wholly free from the vice of the commonplace, being 
tinged with the warm glow which precedes the morning light of 
history. Wild as the Homeric legends, it serves like them to point 
the way. 



Historic. 25. 

to be saved, — all very well as far as it went ; but 
the mud-built pueblos yielded neither gold nor 
precious metals. 

Acoma, fifty miles east of Zuni, is thus accu- 
rately described by Castenada, under the name of 
Acuco : *' It is a very strong place, built upon a 
rock very high and on three sides perpendicular. 
The inhabitants are great brigands, and much 
dreaded by all the province. The only means of 
reaching the top is by ascending a staircase cut 
in solid rock : the first flight of steps numbered 
two hundred, which could only be ascended with 
difficulty ; when a second flight of one hundred 
more followed, narrower and more difficult than 
the first. When surmounted, there remained 
about twelve more at the top, which could only 
be ascended by putting the hands and feet in 
holes cut in the rock. There was space on this 
summit to store a great quantity of provisions, 
and to build large cisterns." * 

The chiefs told Coronado that their towns 
were older than the memory of seven generations. 
They were all built on the same plan, in blocks 
shaped like a parallelogram, and were from two 
to four stories high, with terraces receding from 
the outside. The lower story, without openings,, 
was entered from above by ladders, which were 
pulled up, and secured them against Indian war- 
fare. There was no interior communication be- 
tween the stories ; the ascent outside was made 
from one terrace to another. The houses were of 
sun-dried bricks^ and for plaster they used a mix- 
ture of ashes, earth, and coal. Every village had 
from one to seven estufas, built partly under- 
ground, walled over the top with flat roofs, and 

* It is the same to-day that it was in 1540,— a place of great 
strength : and the Jfesa can be ascended only by the artificial 
road. The houses on top are of adobes, one and two stories in 
height. Water is brought from the valley below by the woman in 
jars of earthenware, which they balance on their heads with won- 
derful ease as they ascend the high steps and ladders. The pres- 
ent population numbers not over four hundred souls. 



26 The Land of the Pueblos. 

used for political and religious purposes. As in 
■certain other mystic lodges which date back to the 
days of King Solomon, women were not admitted. 
All matters of importance were there discussed ; 
there the consecrated fires were kept burning, 
and were never allowed to go out. The women 
wore on their shoulders a sort of mantle, which 
they fastened round the neck, passing it under 
the right arm, and skirts of cotton. " They also," 
writes Castenada, *' make garments of skins very 
well dressed, and trick off the hair behind the 
■ears in the shape of a wheel, which resembles the 
handle of a cup." They wore pearls on their 
heads and necklaces of shells. Everywhere were 
plenty of glazed pottery and vases of curious 
form and workmanship, reminding the Spaniards 
«of the jars of Guadarrama in old Spain. 

The gallant freebooters traversed deserts, swam 
rivers, scaled mountains, in a three years' chase 
after visionary splendors ; but the opal valley 
and the vanishing cities, with their sunny tur- 
quoise gates and jeweled colonnades, faded into 
the common light of day. Though the adventu- 
rers failed in their mocking " quest of great and 
exceeding riches," they explored and added to 
the Spanish crown, by right of occupation, an 
area twelve times as large as the State of Ohio. 

I dwell on these earliest records because it is 
the habit of travelers visting ruins, which in the 
dry, dewless air of New Mexico are almost im- 
perishable, to ascribe them to an extinct race and 
lost civilization, superior to any now extant here. 
They muse over Aztec glories faded, and temples 
fallen, in the spirit of the immortal antiquary, who 
saw in a ditch ''slightly marked" a Roman wall, 
surrounding the stately and crowded praetorium, 
with its all-conquering standards bearing the 
-great name of Caesar. 

These edifices are not mysterious except to 



Historic. 27* 

fevered fancies, and their tenants were not divers 
nations, but clans, tribes of one blood, and civil- 
ized only as compared with the savages surround- 
ing them — the tameless Apache, the brutish Ute^ 
the degraded Navajo, against whose attacks they 
devised their system of defense, so highly ex- 
tolled by rambling Bohemians, and threw up' 
" impregnable works," which are only low em- 
bankments wide enough for the posting of 
sentinels. 

I have been through many abandoned and 
inhabited pueblos, examining them with the 
utmost care, and can discover no essential in 
which they differ from one another or from those 
of Castenada's time-. In each one there is the 
terraced wall ; the vault-like lower story, used as 
a granary, without openings, and entered from 
above by ladders ; the small upper rooms, with 
tiny windows of selenite and mica; the same 
round oven ; the glazed pottery ; the circular 
estufa with its undying fire; acequias for irriga- 
tion, not built like Roman aqueducts, but mere 
ditches and canals; and from the sameness of the 
remains I infer that no important facts are to 
reward the search of dreaming pilgrim or patient 
student. 

Each village had its peculiar dialect, and chose 
its own governor. The report of the Rev. John 
Menaul, of the Laguna Mission, March I, 1879,. 
gives an abstract of their laws, identical with 
those framed by "the council of old men," the 
dusky senators described by Castenada; and then, 
as now, the governor's orders were proclaimed 
from the top of the estufa, every morning, by the 
town-crier. 

After the invasion of Coronado, New Granada^ 
as it was then called, was crossed by padres, 
vagabonds of various grades, and later by armies 
of subjugation. The same tale is told : how the 



-28 The Land of the Pueblos. 

peace-loving Pueblo was found, as his descend 
ants are, cultivating fields along the rivers or 
near some unfailing spring, living in community 
houses wonderfully alike, and keeping alive the 
sacred fire under laws which like those of the 
Medes and Persians, change not. The fair 
•strangers were at first graciously welcomed and 
feasted; but the red men soon learned that the 
children of the sun, before whom they knelt, 
whose march-worn feet they kissed in ado- 
ration, were come merely for robbery and spoil. 
The Indian was condemned not only to give up 
his scanty possessions, and leave the warm 
precincts of the cheerful day to work in dismal 
mines, but he must put out the holy flame, and 
worship the God of his pitiless master. Conver- 
sion was ever a main object of the zealous co7i- 
qiiistador, and Vargas, one of the early Spanish 
governors, applying for troops to carry on the cru- 
sade, writes — and his record still stands — "You 
might as well try convert Jews without the In- 
quisition as Indians without soldiers." The first 
revolt (1640), while Arguello was governor of the 
province, grew out of the whipping and hanging 
•of forty Pueblos, who refused to give up their 
own religion and accept the holy Catholic faith. 

The Pueblos constantly rebelled, and escaped 
to the lair of the mountain lion, the den of the 
grizzly and cinnamon bear, the hole of the fox 
and coyote. They sought shelter from the ava- 
rice and bigotry of their Christian persecutors in 
the steeps of distant canons, and found where to 
lay their head in the hollows of inaccessible rocks ; 
and this brings us to the cliff houses, latterly the 
subject of confused exaggeration and absurd con- 
jecture. 

It is well known that the first foreign invasions 
were by far the most merciless, and it appears 
reasonable that hunted natives made a hiding- 



Histof'in. 29 

place in these fastnesses ; that there they alhed 
themselves with the Navajo, who, from a remote 
period, had dwelt in the northern plains, beat 
back the enemy, and, as Spanish rigor relaxed, 
returned from exile to their fields and adobe houses 
as before. Mud v/alls had been proof against arrow, 
spear, and battle-axe, but could not withstand 
the finer arms of the fairer race. The cave or 
cliff-dwellings of Utah, Colorado, and Arizona are 
exact copies of the community tenements of 
Southern and Moquis pueblos, varying with situa- 
tion and quality of material used. The architec- 
ture of these human nests and eyries — in some 
places seven hundred and a thousand feet from 
the bottom of the canon — has been magnified out 
of all bounds. Eager explorers, hurried away by 
imagination, have even compared the civilization 
which produced them vv^ith 

" The glory tliat was Greece, 
The grandeur that was Kome. " 

I found nothing in them to Avarrant such flights 
of fancy, and, like all castles in air, they lessen 
wofuUy at a near view. Those along the Rio 
Mancos and Du Chelly are mere pigeon-holes in 
the sides of caiions, roofed by projecting ledges 
of rock. The walls, six or eight inches thick, 
are built of flat brook-stones hacked on the edge 
with stone hatchets, or rather hammers, to square 
angles; in some cases they are laid in mud mor- 
tar and finished with mud plaster, troweled, Pueblo 
fashion, with the bare hand. Certainly, mortal 
never fled to these high perches from choice, or 
failed to desert them as soon as the danger 
passed. Whether we believe that the hunters 
were Christian or heathen, we must admit that 
this was a last refuge for the hunted, made desper- 
ate by terror. The masonry is smoothed, so 
none but the sharpest eyes can notice the differ- 



30 The Land of the Pueblos. 

ence between it and the rock itself, and in no 
instance is there trace of chimney jr fire-place."^ 
The whole idea of the work is concealment. 

One might well ask, with sight-seeing Niza 
strolling through fabled Cibola, *' if the men of 
that country had wings by which to reach these 
high lofts." Unfortunately for the romancers, 
"they showed him a well-made ladder, and said 
they ascended by this means. " And well-made 
ladders the cliff dwellers had — steps cut in the 
living rock of the mountain, and scaling-ladders 
stout and light. 

The solitary watch-towers along the McElmo, 
Colorado, and wide-spread relics of cities in the 
canon of the Hovenwap, Utah, near the old 
Spanisli trail through the mountains from Santa 
Fe to Salt Lake, are built on the same general 
plan, and divided into snug cells and peep-holes, 
averaging six by eight feet. Perpendiculars are 
regarded; stones dressed to uniform size are laid 
in mud mortar. A distinguishing feature is in 
the round corners, one at least appearing in near- 
ly every little house. " Most peculiar, however, 
is the dressing of the walls of the upper and 
lower front rooms, both being plastered with a 
thin layer of firm adobe cement of about the 
eighth of an inch in thickness, and colored a deep 
maroon red, with a dingy white band eight inches 
in breath running around floor, sides, and ceil- 
ing" t — ideas of improvements probably deri- 
ved from their enlightened conquerors. There 
is a story that a hatchet found there would cut 
cold steel, but I have not been able to learn its 
origin or trace it to any reliable authority. 

In every room entered was the unfailing mark 

* Canon du Clielly, in Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation, is a 
passage tlirougli a mountain range, twenty-tive miles in length, 
from one hnndred to five hundred yards in width, and is perhaps 
the strongest natural citadel on tlie earth. There is but one 
narrow way by which a horse can ascend its height, where a squad 
of soldiers could defy the cavalry of the world. 

t Hay den's Survey, 1874. 



Historic. 31 

of the Pueblo — pottery glazed and streaked, as 
manufactured by no other tribe of Indians, and 
invariably reduced to fragments, either through 
superstition or to prevent its falling into the 
hands of the enemy. No entire vase or jar has 
appeared among the masses strewed from one 
end to the other of their ancient dominion. I 
have picked up quantities of this pottery near 
old towns, where it covers the ground like broken 
pavement, but have not seen one piece four inches 
square. 

After their first experiments the Spaniards saw 
the policy of conciliating a confederation so 
numerous and powerful as the Pueblos, and as early 
as the time of Philip II. mountains, pastures, and 
waters were declared common to both races ; 
ordinances were issued granting them lands for 
agriculture, but the title in no instance was of 
higher grade than possession. The fee-simple 
remained in the crown of Spain, then in the gov- 
ernment of Mexico, by virtue of her independ- 
ence, and under the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidal- 
go, February 2, 1848, passed to the United 
States. 

When General Kearney took possession of the 
country the Pueblos were among the first to give 
allegiance to our government, and, as allies, were 
invaluable in chasing the barbarous tribes — their 
old enemies, whom they tracked with the keen 
scent and swiftness of blood-hounds. They now 
number not less than twenty thousand peaceful, 
contented citizens, entitled to confidence and 
respect, and by decree of the supreme court 
(1871) they became legal voters. 

Without written language, or so much as the 
lowest form of picture-writing, they usually speak 
a little Spanish, enough for purposes of trade, 
and, less stolid and unbending than the nomads, 
in manner are extremely gentle and friendly. 



32 The Liiftd of the Pueblos. 

Their quaint primitive customs, curious myths, 
and legends afford rich material for the poet, and 
their antiquities open an endless field to the delv- 
ing archaeologist. 

Nominally Catholics, they are really only bap- 
tized heathen. A race so rigidly conservative 
must by very nature be true to the ancient cere- 
monials, and their religion is not the least attract- 
ive study offered by this interesting people. Even 
the dress of the women (oh, happy women !) has 
remained unchanged, — the same to-day as de- 
scribed by Coronado's secretary in 1541. 

There passes my window at this moment a 
young Indian girl from Tesuque, a village eight 
miles north of Santa Fe. Like the beloved one 
of the Canticles, she is dark but comely, and 
without saddle or bridle sits astride her little 
burro in cool defiance of city prejudice. Always 
gayly dressed, 'with ready nod and a quick smile, 
showing the whitest teeth, we call her Bright Al- 
farata, in memory of the sweet singer of the blue 
Juniata ; though the interpreter says her true 
name is Poy-ye, the Rising Moon. Neither of us 
understands a word of the other's language, so I 
beckon to her. She springs to the ground with 
the supple grace of an antelope, and comes to 
me, holding out a thin, slender hand, the tint of 
Florentine bronze, seats herself on the window- 
sill, and in the shade of the portal we converse 
in what young lovers are pleased to call eloquent 
silence. Her donkey will not stray, but lingers 
patiently about, like the lamb he resembles in 
face and temper, and nibbles the scant grass 
which fringes the acequia. I think his mistress 
must be a lady of high degree, perhaps the ca- 
cique^s daughter, she wears such a holiday air, 
unusual with Indian women, and is so richly 
adorned w^ith beads of strung periwinkles. She 
wears loose moccasins, '* shoes of silence," which 



Flistoric. 33 

cannot hide the dehcate and shapely outUne of 
her feet, leggins of deer-skin, a skirt reaching 
below the knee, and a cotton chemise. Her head 
has no covering but glossy jet-black hair, newly 
washed with ainol'e, banged in front, and '* is 
tricked off behind the ears in the shape of a 
wheel which resembles the handle of a cup" — 
the distinguishing fashion of maidenhood now as 
it was more than three hundred years ago. Tied 
by a scarlet cord across her forehead is a pend- 
ant of opaline shell, the lining of a muscle shell, 
doubtless the very ornament called precious 
pearl and opal which dazzled the eyes and stir- 
red the covetous hearts of the first conqiiistadores. 
Our Pueblo belle wraps about her drapery such 
as Castenada's maiden never dreamed of, — a flow- 
ing mantle which has followed the march of 
progress. Thrown across the left shoulder and 
drawn under her bare and beautiful right arm is 
a handsome red blanket, with the letters U. S. 
woven in the centre. 

One secret cause of the Pueblos' ready adher- 
ence to our government is their tradition that, 

"Far away 
In the eternal yesterclaj'." 

Montezuma, the brother and equal ot God, 
built the sacred city Pecos, marked the lines of 
its fortifications, and with his own royal hand 
kindled the sacred fire in the esttifa. Close 
beside it he planted a tree upside down, with the 
prophecy that, if his children kept alive the flame 
till his tree fell, a pale nation, speaking an 
unknown tongue, should come from the pleasant 
country where the sun rises, and free them from 
Spanish rule. He promised the chosen ones 
that he would return in fullness of time, and then 
went to the glorious rest prepared for him in his 
tabernacle the sun. 

I have seen the remains of that forsaken city, 
3 



34 The Land of the Pueblos. 

once a mighty fortress, now desolate with the des- 
olation of Zion. Thorns have come up in her pal- 
aces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses there- 
of. It is a habitation for dragons and a court for 
owls. The site, admirably chosen for defense, is 
on a promontory, somewhat in the shape of a 
foot, which gave a broad lookout to the sentry, 
In the valle)' below, the waters of the river Pecos 
flow softly, and park-like intervals fill the spaces 
toward foot-hills which skirt the everlasting 
mountain walls. The adobe houses have crumb- 
led to the dust of which they were made, and 
heaped among their ruins are large blocks of 
stone, oblong and square, weighing a ton or 
more, and showing signs of being once laid in 
mortar. 

The outline of the immense estiifa, forty feet 
in diameter, is plainly visible, sunken in the earth 
and paved with stone ; but all trace of the upper 
story of the council chamber has vanished. On 
the mesa there is not a tree, not even the dwarf 
cedar, which strikes its roots in sand, and lives 
almost without water or dew ; but, strange to see, 
across the centre of the cstiifa lies the trunk of a 
large pine, several feet in circumference — an 
astonishing growth in that sterile soil. The Indian 
resting in its fragrant shade, listening to the nev- 
er-ceasing west wind swaying slender leaves that 
answered to its touch like harp-strings to the 
harper's hand, clothed the stately evergreen with 
loving superstition, which hovers round it even 
in death ; for this is the Montezuma tree, planted 
when the world was young. 

When Pecos was deserted the people went out 
as Israel from Egypt, leaving not a hoof behind. 
They destroyed everything that could be of ser- 
vice to an enemy, and the ground is yet covered 
with scraps of broken pottery marked with their 
peculiar tracery. 



Historic. 35 

The Oriental Gheber built his temple over deep 
subterranean fires, and the steady light shone on 
after altar and shrine were abandoned and for- 
gotten ; but the fire-worshipers on the stony mesa 
at Pecos had a very different work. The only 
fuel at hand was cedar from the adjacent hills; 
and, shut in the dark inclosure, filled with pitchy 
smoke and suffocating gas, it is not strange that 
death sometimes relieved the watch. When the 
chiefs, who had seen the kingly friend of the red 
man, grew old, and the hour came for their 
departure to their home in the sun, they charged 
the young men to guard the treasure hidden in 
the silent chamber. Another generation came 
and went ; prophecy and promise were handed 
down from age to age, and the Pueblo sentinel, 
true to his unwritten creed, guarded the conse- 
crated place beside the miracle-tree, daily climbed 
the lonely watch-tower, looked toward the sun- 
rising, and listened for the coming of the beauti- 
ful feet of them that on the mountain-top bring 
glad tidings. Their days of persecution ended, 
they no longer ate their bread with tears, and a 
century of prosperous content went by. Then 
they were shorn of their strength, and their 
power was broken by inroads of warring nations. 
The cunning Navajo harried their fields and 
trampled the ripening maize ; the thieving and 
tameless Comanche carried off their wives, and 
sold their children into slavery, and their num- 
bers were so reduced that the warriors were too 
feeble to attempt a rescue. Hardly enough sur- 
vived to minister in the holy place ; hope wa- 
vered, and the mighty name of Montezuma was 
but a dim, proud memory. 

Yet the devoted watchmen dreamxcd of a day 
when he should descend with the sunlight — 
crowned, plumed, and anointed — to fill the dingy 
estufa with a glory like that when the Divine 



36 The Land of the Pueblos, 

Presence shook the mercy-seat between the 
cherubim. The eternal fire flickered, smouldered 
in embers, but endured through all change and 
chance, like a potent will ; it was the visible 
shadow of tlie Invisible One, whose name it is 
death to utter. Sent by his servant and law- 
giver, his word was sure ; they would rest on the 
promise till sun and earth should die. 

At last, at last, constant faith and patient vigil 
had their reward. On the wings of the wind 
across the snowy Sierras was heard a sound like 
the rushing of many waters — the loud steps of 
the promised deliverer. East, toward Santo 
Domingo, southward from the Rio Grande, there 
entered Santa Fe an army of men with faces 
whiter than the conquered Mexican. Their 
strange, harsh language was heard in the streets; 
a foreign flag bearing the colors of the morning, 
white and red, blue and gold, was unrolled above 
the crumbling palace of the Pueblos. The 
prophecy was fulfilled, and at noon that day the 
magic tree at Pecos fell to the ground. 

After the American occupation, the remnant of 
the tribe in Pecos joined that of Jemez, which 
speaks the same language. It is said the cacique, 
or governor, carried with him the Montezuma 
fire, and in a new estiifa, sixty miles from the one 
hallowed by his gracious presence, the faithful 
are awaiting the second advent of the beloved 
prophet, priest, and king, who is to come in 
glory and establish his throne forever and ever. 



CHAPTER III. 

LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 

The number of Pueblo or Town Indians of 
New Mexico and Arizona has been variously 
estimated at from sixteen to twenty-five thousand. 
The dumb secrecy of the red race makes it diffi- 
cult for the census-taker to reach correct 
figures among them. They have a suspicion 
that the Sagamore with medicine-book, ink and 
pen has come to question them with wicked in- 
tent; that numbering the people means plotting 
for mischief; and they secrete their children and 
give false figures, so it is impossible to arrive at an 
accurate estimate of their numbers. In the cul- 
tured East there is a popular superstition that 
the noble aboriginal soul disdains artifice, and is 
open as sunlight to the sweet influences of truth 
and straightforward testimony : — an illusion ris- 
ing from the misty enchantments of distance. 
Come among them, and you will soon learn to 
make allowance for every assertion; and as for 
vanity and self-love I have never seen any equal 
that of the children of nature debased by contact 
with the white men. They cannot be instructed, 
because they know everything, nor surprised, 
because their fathers had all wisdom before you 
were born. Show them the most curious and 
bea,utiful article you possess ; they survey it with 
stolid composure as an object long familiar. I 
once saw an officer, thinking to floor a Cacique^ 
unfold the wonders of a telescope to the untu- 
tored mind, and explain how, by bending his 
beady eyes to a certain point the child of the 
sun might see the spots on his father; when the 
blanketed philosopher coolly observed that he had 

27 



38 The Land of the Pueblos. 

often looked through such machines. We then 
gave it up. Like the Chinese they so closely 
resemble, nothing can be named which they did 
not have ages ago ; and having so long possessed 
all knowledge, they steadily resist your efforts to 
show them their ignorance. They think them- 
selves the ^wvy of the civilized world. Among 
such a people one soon learns to repress assump- 
tion of superiority or effort to imipress the calm 
listener with your grammatical sentences. The 
poverty of their language is indescribable. 
Where there is no writing, and of course no 
standard of comparison, the change in the sound 
of words goes on rapidly, while the great princi- 
ple of utterance or general grammar remains. 
Mere change of accent under such circumstances 
produces a dialect. It is not easy to catch the 
lawless Indian tongues ; those of the wandering 
tribes are peculiarly unmanageable, and it is 
wise to have a common meeting-place in the 
little Spanish which they pick up. They have 
no preposition, article, conjunction, or relative 
pronoun, and to a great degree lack the mood 
and tense of the verb. A dual and negative form 
runs throughout the languages, and sentences 
are often composed, not of the words which the 
objects mentioned separately mean, but of words 
meaning certain things in certain connections. 
The disheartened student, groping in the dark for 
signs and rules, and finding none, is glad to turn 
from his bewildering labor to the interpreter who 
has learned by ear. 

The Pueblos have nineteen different villages in 
New Mexico, numbering in all nearly ten thous- 
and souls. The towns are evidently smaller 
than they were formerly, as is plainly proved by 
ruins of houses throughout theirancient dominion, 
and old worn foot-paths, abandoned or almost un- 
trodden, that lead from town to town, beaten by 



Laws and Customs. 39 

centuries of wayfaring in some period whereof 
there is no history. 

They are slowly decreasing in numbers, and, 
says a gentleman resident among them ten years, 
"why they should gradually disappear like the 
nomadic and warlike tribes, is a question not 
easily solved except by the hypothesis that their 
time has come. Their great failing is lack of 
self-assertion. Conquered and brought down 
from freedom and peace two centuries ago, to a 
condition of servitude and an enforced religion, 
the power of 'The Fair God ' has rested heavily 
on them ever since." 

There are singular characteristics among these 
Pueblos. Each village is a separate domain or 
clan, self-supporting, entirely independent of the 
government of the other Pueblos and the great 
Vv^orld in the country across the Sierras where the 
sun rises. There is no common bond of union 
among them, and so little intercourse have they 
with each other that their language, everywhere 
subject to great mutations, is so altered that 
they communicate when needful through the 
Spanish, of which most Indian men understand 
enough to make their wishes known. There are 
three dialects among the tribes of New Mexico, 
and three or four more among those of Arizona. 
Few Indians understand more than one. In the 
seven Moqui villages of Arizona, within a radius 
of ten miles, three distinct tongues are spoken. 
The inhabitants are identical in blood, manners, 
laws and mode of life. For centuries they have 
been isolated from the rest of the world, and it is 
almost incomprehensible to the restless, aggres- 
sive, fairer race how these Pueblos refuse any 
inter-communication. Tegua and the two adja- 
cent towns are separated by a few miles from 
Mooshahneh and another pair. Oraybe is not a 
great distance from both. Each mud- walled 



.40 The Land of the Pueblos. 

community-house has so Httle interest in the 
others that there is neither trade nor visiting be- 
tween them. One might think the women, at 
least, would sometimes pick up their knitting 
and go out for a little social enjoyment and the 
friendly gossip so dear to the feminine heart, or 
that crafty hunters, tracking deer and coyote, 
would follow the abandoned trails of the fore- 
fathers winding among the towns, but they do 
not; they are too sluggish and dead, and it is the 
rarest thing for a man to marry outside of his 
own little tribe. I have heard the assertion that 
so far from dying out before the march of civili- 
zation the increase goes steadily on — not in all the 
tribes, but in the aggregate. It is not true. The 
prehistoric ruins plainly prove that in long for- 
gotten days the Pueblos were numerous and 
powerful ; a nation and a company of nations. 
The Rio Grande valley was then dotted with 
clusters of towns, and Santa Fe was the centre of 
four confederacies, and among the most populous 
of cities. Down the little Rio on both banks are 
remains of villages, heaps of crumbling adobes, 
and the unfailing sign of fleeing tribes, scraps of 
broken pottery, glazed and painted with their 
peculiar markings. Thinking of the bold 
theories about population, one naturally asks, Who 
took the census when De Soto went wandering 
up and down the everglades of Florida seeking 
the alluring, ever vanishing Fountain of Youth. 

Every Pueblo, or village, has its own officers 
and government independent of all the others, 
and exactly the same and according to the 
ancient customs. First there is the Cacique^ 
chief officer of church and state, priest of Monte- 
zuma, and director of all temporal affairs of the 
pueblo. It is not known how the Cacique was 
originally installed in his office, he alone having 
power to appoint his successor — which duty is 



Laws and Customs. 41 

among the first he performs after succeeding to 
his office ; nor can the most inquiring mind of 
the most energetic newspaper correspondent dis- 
cover the origin of their judicial system. 

The Cacique, aided by three Principalcs, se- 
lected by himself, appoints the Governor "and all 
the officers." The appointments are communi- 
cated to the council of Principales, and then pro- 
claimed to the people. No matter how weak 
and shrunken in numbers the tribe, it still has its 
full corps of officers, all sons of Montezuma, 
though evidently many generations removed 
from the conquering chiefs who reveled in the 
jeweled halls of their illustrious ancestor. 

The Governor is appointed by the Cacique for 
one year, and is the executive officer of the town. 
He is chief in power and nothing can be done 
without the order of the Governor, especially in 
those things relating to the political government. 
The position is purely honorary as regards salary^ 
and the honors do not cease w^ith the office, for 
the dignified place of Principal is awaiting him 
at the close of his term, and there is no anti-third 
term rule to prohibit his holding the place many 
times during his life. 

Immediately after the Governor succeeds ta 
his office he repairs to Santa Fe and seeks the 
agent for the Pueblo Indians to receive confirma- 
tion. This is an empty ceremony, the agent 
being without the authority to object or remove, 
but it isfollowed in obedience to precedent and 
custom, and there is no harm in humoring the 
ambition of the gentle wards of the government. 
On such days of lofty state the happy fellow, in 
paint and solemn dignity, brings a silver-headed 
cane, and hands it to the agent, who returns it to 
the Governor, and the august inaugural ceremony 
is ended. Under the Mexican rule, it is said, 
the new incumbent knelt before the Governor of 



-42 The Land of the Pueblos. 

the Territory, and was confirmed by a process of 
laying on of hands, and some sim^ple formula of 
Spanish sentences. 

The Principales, or ex-Governors, compose a 
•council of wise men, and are the constitutional 
advisers of the Governor, deciding important 
questions by their vote. 

The Algiiacil, or Sheriff, carries out the orders 
of the Governor, and is overseer and director of 
the pubHc works. 

The Fiscal Mayor attends to the ordinary re- 
ligious ceremonies. 

The Capitan de la Guerre y captain of war, with 
his under-captains and Heutenants, has very light 
■duty to perform in these piping times of peace. 
He is head of the ancient customs, dances, and 
whatever pertains to the moral life of the people. 
The several priests acting under him order the 
dances, and enforce special obedience of those 
dedicated to any particular god or ancient order. 
Each of the officers has a number of lieuten- 
ants under him. 

This is a gallant array of officials for such a 
tribe as Tesuque, numbering less than a hundred, 
or Pojouque, in all twenty-six, or Zia fifty-eight 
haughty aborigines. I have not been able to find 
if they have badges and insignia of office, but I 
do know they strut along the streets of Santa 
Fe as though they were at the head of tribes like 
the sands of* the sea-shore, like the leaves of the 
forest, the stars of heaven, according to the 
.swelling sentences of the proud speeches which our 
early friend J. F. Cooper gave his heroes. The 
uniform worn is usually buckskin pants, fringed 
leggins, moccasins, and, in lordly defiance of the 
prejudices of civilization, with untaught grace 
the Cacique wears his pink calico shirt outside his 
pantaloons. It breezily flutters in the eternal 
west wind, but the sun is his father, the earth 



Laws and Customs. 43, 

is his mother ; he heeds not that cold breath 
though it blow from heights of perpetual 
snow. The tenderness of romance invests the 
degraded descendant of the noble Aztecan, and 
wherever he turns, the shades of Cooper and 
Prescott attend him. 

As a class the Pueblos are the most industrious, 
useful, and orderly people on the frontier ; at 
peace with each other and the surrounding 
Mexicans. They raise large crops of grain, 
ploughing with a crooked stick, the oriental imple- 
ment in the days of Moses, and frequently stir- 
ring the soil with a rude hoe, for where irriga- 
tion is necessary constant work is required. 
Threshing is done by herds of goats or flocks of 
sheep, the floor being a plastered mud ring en- 
closed in upright poles. The wheat is piled up 
in the centre, the animals are turned into the 
pen, and driven round and round until the grain 
is all trampled out. Then the mass is thrown 
into the air; the wind carries away the broken 
straw, leaving the grain mixed with quantities of 
gravel, sand, etc. It is washed before being 
ground, but the flour is always more or less gritty. 
They raise corn, beans, vegetables, and grapes, 
the latter rich and sweet, and own large herds of 
cattle and sheep. They possess in common much 
of the best land of the Territory which, for culti- 
vation, is parceled out to the various families 
who raise their own crops and take their pro- 
duce to market. 

Paupers and drones are unknown among them, 
because all are obliged to work and make con- 
tribution to the possessions of the community to 
which they belong. 

At Taos nearly four hundred persons live in 
two buildings over three hundred feet in length, 
and about a hundred and fifty feet wide at the 
base. They are on opposite sides of a little 



44 The La7id of the Pueblos. 

creek, said to have been connected in ancient 
times by a bridge, a grim and threatening fort- 
ress of savage strength, many times attacked by 
the Spaniards but never captured. If there are 
family feuds and quarrels, the outside world has 
no knowledge of them ; men, women, and child- 
ren, mothers-in-law and all, live together in abso- 
lute harmony. On the highest story a sentinel 
is posted. One might think this ancient custom 
could be dispensed with in the generation of 
peace since the American occupation, but they 
hold the wise Napoleonic idea, if you would have 
peace be always ready for war. 

Each Pueblo contains from one to seven estti- 
fas, used as a council-house and a place of wor- 
ship, where they carry on their heathen rites and 
ceremonies, and deliberate on the public weal ; a 
consecrated spot to which women are not admit- 
ted ; a senate-chamber where long debates on 
public affairs are maintained, and the business of 
the tribe transacted by the council of wise men, 
•cunning prophets, and able warriors, whose duty 
it is to manage the internal affairs of the town. 
The Governor assembles his constitutional ad- 
visers in the lodge, where matters are discussed 
and decided by the majority. One of their wise 
regulations is a secret police whose duty is to 
prevent vice and disorder, and report in the un- 
der-ground estiifa the conduct of suspected per- 
sons. The dingy little ''temples of sin," as the 
old Catholics call them, are hung round with dim 
and fading legends and shadowy superstitions. 
Their worshipers have not the slightest approach 
to music in the horrible noises they make there — 
a kind of sledge-hammer beating on rude drums 
and blowing of ear-splitting whistles — nor have 
they any idea of rhythm or poetry. No correct 
tradition is kept without one of these arts, and 
in the absence of all recorded law a perfect devc- 



Laws and Customz. 45 

tion to custom carries their poor civilization for- 
ward as it was in the beginning. It keeps the 
Pueblos a separate and distinct people, bounded 
by a dead wall of conservatism to this day. 
Says the Rev. Dr. Menaul of the Taguna mission, 
*' Religion enters into everything they do, i. e. 
everything is done according to ancient custom. 
The new-born babe comes upon the stage of life 
under its auspices, is fed and clothed, or not 
clothed, according to custom. It is hushed to 
sleep with a custom-song, gets custom-medicine, 
and grows up in the very bosom of religious cus- 
tom. The father plants and reaps his fields, 
makes his moccasins, knits his stockings, carries 
the baby on his back, in fact does all that he does in 
strict conformity to custom. The mother grinds 
the meal, makes the bread, wears her clothing, 
and keeps her house, makes her water-pots, and 
paints them with religious symbols, according to 
custom. The whole iimer and outer life of the 
Indian is one of perfect devotion to religious cus- 
tom, or obedience to his faith." And this adora- 
tion of the past makes them the miost difficult 
of all people to be reached by outside influence, 
a rigid unbending adherence to old time observ- 
ances sets their faces as a flint against everything 
new and foreign, and our mission-work seems 
dashing against a dead wall. Nothing is subject 
to change among them except language ; they 
have the most shifting forms of human speech, so 
the students tell us, and desiring no improve- 
ment or alteration, how can we influence them by 
religious teaching? How plant new ideas where 
there is no room to receive them ? 

Of all the millions of native Americans who 
have perished under the withering influence of 
European civilization, there is not a single in- 
stance on record of a tribe or nation having been 
reclaimed, ecclesiastically or otherwise, by arti- 



46 The Land of the Pueblos^ 

fice and argument. Individual savages have been 
educated with a fair degree of success, but there 
is no tribe that is not savage. The Koran says, 
" Every child is born into the religion of nature ; 
its parents make it a Jew, a Christian, or a 
Magian." These North American Indians are 
more alike than the children of Japhet. Our 
culture is a failure offered to them, unless one can 
be detached from his tribe ; return him to his 
people, and he goes back to the dances and in- 
cantations, the mystic lodges and time-hallowed 
ceremonials of the fathers. It seems as difficult 
to train him as to teach the birds of the air a 
new note, or the beaver another mode of making 
his dam ; we cannot re-create the head or the 
heart of the red man He wants his freedom, 
his tribe, his ancient customs ; he desires no 
change, and his sense of spiritual things is in- 
stinctive like a child's. 

This rigidity of organism makes sad waste of 
religious teaching. Catholic and Protestant have 
been alike unsuccessful. Jonathan Edwards fail- 
ed as signally, as the missionaries of the Territories 
who have lived among them for generations. 
There is a scarce perceptible progress. The 
young men have no wish to be better or different 
from their fatliers, and they are sHghtly changed 
(can we say for the better ?) since Columbus gave 
to Spain the gift of the New World. 

Hardest of all is it to teach the Indian how di- 
vine a woman may be made, and it is argued that 
women are best fitted to reach the burden-bearing 
sisters of the red race. The Quakers succeeded 
no better than the Puritans, and St. Mary of the 
Conception was not more discouraged than the 
self-sacrificing bride from New England, who 
comes to the land of sand and thorn to teach the 
dusky mothers how to sing and sew, and broken 
in health and spirit, returns to her native hills again. 




Zuni War Club, Dance Ornaments, etc. 



Laws and Customs. 47 

In winter the main industry of the Pueblos is 
practicing for the pubHc dances, a training pur- 
sued with anxious care by the priesthood dedi- 
cated to the duty, as by the ambitious danseuse 
who fain would copy the famous winged sylphide 
leap attained by the lithe limbs and flying feet of 
Taglioni. 

Their Te Deum after victories, and most 
sacred and beloved rite, is the cacliina 
dance, which they celebrate at certain seasons of 
the year with great rejoicings. I have never 
seen it but am told it is full of contortions and 
fantastic leaps, ending in a jerky trot, unlike 
polka or mazurka, and still less resembling the 
gliding, sinuous action of the world-old Teutonic 
waltz, most delicate modulation of graceful move- 
ment vouchsafed the children of men. 

When the Spaniards first conquered this 
country and imposed their religion on the natives, 
the idolatrous cachina was prohibited on pain of 
death. History records the natives held it so 
cruel a deprivation, that the interdict was one of 
the main causes of the great rebellion of 1680, 
when Don Antonio de Oterim was Governor and 
Captain General of Nueva Espagna. Many of 
the night dances are held in the deepest secrecy; 
of these the uninitiated may not speak ; but other 
holy days commemorative of abundant harvests 
are high festivals to which citizens of Santa Fe 
are cordially invited. You-pel-lay, or the green 
corn dance, is a national thanksgiving involving 
the deepest interest and mighty preparation, be- 
sides fasting and purification. Some weeks be- 
fore the carnival we accepted an invitation from 
the Cacique of Santo Domingo, where unusual 
pomp and circumstance attend the celebration of 
this harvest home. 

It was in the mild September. Our ambu- 
lance was roomy and comfortable, the mules 



48 The Land of the Pueblos. 

were fresh, the party just such as the dear reader 
loves, the breeze sweet as the unbreathed air of 
Eden. I will not tire your patience with raptures 
about Rocky Mountain sunHght and scenery ; 
the glorious peaks are always in sight, the aerial 
tints from the hand of the great Master are shift- 
ing and changeable as eastern skies at sunset — 
floating veils of exquisite hue hinting of a view- 
less glory beyond. The wagon road is always 
good, and with song and story we beguiled the 
way and listened with eager interest to a delight- 
ful legend, prettily told by a reporter from St. 
Louis, which he said he had from one of the 
medicine men of the Pueblos. All about "a 
spirit yet a woman, too," who with bright green 
garments and silky yellow tresses flits above the 
maize fields, and in the night, robed with darkness 
as a garment, draws a magic circle round them 
to keep off blight and vermin. 

It had rather a familiar air and flavor, and 
when the story was ended, one of the audience 
dryly inquired if the narrator had ever heard of 
Longfellow. St. Louis then came down reluct- 
antly and confessed to having stolen the tradition 
from Hiawatha. 

We missed our way, and in consequence had 
to jolt over one bad hill, so steep and cut with 
steps it reminded me of the gigantic precipitous 
stairs in the flight of Israel Putnam, a blood- 
curdling picture of affrighted rider and steed, the 
delight and terror of my childhood. But this 
was a mighty hill of adamant, on which the flood, 
earthquakes and the centuries counted only in 
heaven have beaten and spent their strength in 
vain. We did not care for delays. Time is no 
object on the frontier. We lag along with exas- 
perating slowness if you want to get through ; 
are not expected at any place, sleep where the 
pight overtakes us, and loiter at will in no fear of 



Laws and Customs, 49 

being behind time or caught in a shower, a hap- 
hazard, good-for-nothing way of travel which 
gives a mild, game flavor to the journey. If you 
have a drop of gypsy blood in you it will come 
to the surface, strawberry-mark and all, in New 
Mexico. 

As we neared the village we passed pilgrims 
going up to the jubilee: men, women, children in 
holiday attire, for once moved out of their stony 
rigidity of face and mien, smiling back to their 
last white molars in answer to the courteous salu- 
tations exchanged by wayfarers everywhere in 
that Territory. The natives step with an easy 
swinging gait, apparently uiitired at the end of a 
day's march as in the first hours of the morning. 
Their figures in motion are n t without artistic 
grace, expressing strength and fleetness ; and 
when interested an alert intelligence lights the 
face, but ordinarily the cold, stony apathy of the 
race is its ruling characteristic. One Pueblo 
marching beside us that day I shall never forget. 
He was a very model of sinewy strength, a per- 
fect mountain prince, erect and stately in his 
crown of green leaves, and striped Navajo blanket 
draping his shoulders, held in place by one sym- 
metric hand. The noblest Roman wore his im- 
perial mantle with no better grace. The attri- 
tion of civilization fails to make our aborigines at 
all like "the white brother." These peace-loving 
Pueblos, a pastoral people pursuing their simple 
industries and trudging to market with their poor 
products, are as thoroughly Indian as the wildest 
Apache, with brandished knife and dripping 
scalp in hand, dancing on the battle field and 
whooping in triumph over the banquet of blood. 

After leaving the Israel Putnam hill we crossed 
a mesa or table-land, and, descending into the 
valley of the Del Norte descried the village of the 
Santo Domingo, a tribe which numbers in all 



5© The Land of the Pueblos, 

1,129 souls. A little way off the main road, on 
the bank of the river, are the adobe houses, two 
stories high with the usual terraces. The roofs 
are supported by pine logs, are nearly flat and 
covered with bark and earth. A few miles away 
are the ruins of ancient Pueblos, crumbling walls 
whose thickness attests their age. Like all the 
prehistoric buildings, they are on a high bluff 
two hundred feet above the water. All ruins 
have a certain pathetic interest, but we did not 
turn aside to visit these, knowing it would be 
only a repitition of arrowheads, stone hatchets 
and the tiresome pottery fragments. The old 
arrowheads are mainly obsidian, {istli) usually 
black, sometimes a smoky or brown tint. They 
are strewed through the earth wherever graves of 
men have been found. To borrow the forcible 
sentence of Hohiies, ''Whether the arrowheads 
are a hundred or a thousand years old who 
knows, who cares? There is no history to the 
red race, there is scarcely an individual in it. A 
few instincts on legs and holding a tomahawk; 
— there is the Indian of all time." 

We saw a party that day hunting rabbits with 
clubs which they throw, making a whirring sound 
like the boomerang of eastern savages. It is tlie 
one sport in which women are allowed to take 
part. If in v/hirling his missile a warrior misses 
a rabbit, which is finally killed by a squaw, he is 
obliged by law or custom, which is equally strong, 
to change clothes with her, and they return to 
the pueblo, or village, in that guise; Hercules 
and Omphale. He must also keep her in fresh 
meat during the next winter, serving out his 
term of degradation in feminine belongings, a 
target for aboriginal wit, and, for the season, the 
village fool. Under such humiliating penalty for 
failure, we may imagine the experts throw the 
club with wondrous care and skill when women 
join in the chase. 



Laws mid Customs. 5 1 

This joke is immemorially old, handed down 
from the ancients or fathers, and is immortally 
fresh and delightful, tickling the fancy of the red 
man. 

On both sides of the river run chains of hills, 
those on the west side extending inland in ex- 
tensive mesas; and not very far away to the 
southeast we trace, in aerial tints of supreme 
beauty, the serrated ridges of the Sandia moun- 
tains. 

Properly speaking there are but two valleys in 
New Mexico ; the Rio Grande and the Pecos. 
Should either stream go dry, starvation and fam- 
ine would follow. They flow nearly parallel, from 
north to south, fifty and sixty miles apart, till 
they reach Texas. Skirting their banks are the 
cultivated fields, making a garden beauty with 
their tender verdure in contrast with the dull 
green of dry plains. 

By the city of the saint sat a feminine mummy 
selling grapes. Her head was dressed by the 
hands of time and nature after the style of Elisha, 
which so diverted the bad boys of Bethel, and 
she looked immovable as the dead. 

She and her store of fruitage, were sheltered 
from the sun blaze in a booth of pine boughs ; 
a little green bower called by the orientals 
sticcoth, a refreshment to the eyes in the shade- 
less stretch of the parched valleys. The wattle 
of twigs and leaves is such as Israel made for 
himself in Canaan, and men of Galilee wove 
together of thick foliage on the pleasant skirts of 
Olivet, when they came up to Jerusalem at the 
feast of the Passover; such as the Sharon peasant 
yet builds for his family at the Jerusalem gate of 
Jaffa. There was much beside this shady spot to 
remind us of Bible pictures ; the low adobe houses, 
the flocks with the herdsman coming to drink at 
the shallow stream, the clambering goats in 



52 The Land of the Pueblos. 

scanty pastures high up the rocks, shaking their 
beards at the passing strangers, the kids bleating 
by their mothers, the Mexican women, straight 
as a rule, carrying water-jars on head or shoul- 
der, like maidens of Palestine. Now and then 
an old black shawl, melancholy remnant of the 
gay rebosa, shrouding an olive forehead, sug- 
gested the veiled face of the gentle Rebecca. 
The lofty presence, the high eagle features of the 
Jewish race, the lustrous eyes of the Orient are 
not here, nor is the barren magnificence of New 
Mexico more than a suggestion of the land once 
the glory of all lands, with its verdure of plumy 
palms, beauty of olive orchards, the dark foliage 
of cypress trees, and white and scarlet blooms of 
orange and pomegranate. 

These thoughts pass through our mind as we 
wait in the wagon while the driver, a Mexican 
boy, bargains with Pharoah's daughter for the 
day's supply of grapes. We get three fine 
bunches for five cents, rich and nourishing, 
grown in sandy river bottoms irrigated with al- 
kali water. They are sweet as the ripest Italian 
vintage in terraced vineyards, warmed by the 
volcanic heat throbbing in the fiery heart of Ve- 
suvius. 

For market, the purple clusters are laid lightly 
in crates made of pine branches thick as your 
thumb, bound together by green withes of bark, 
lined with fresh leaves and packed on the backs 
of burros, the scriptural ass. The vine is not al- 
lowed to run, but is kept trimmed close to the 
ground. Every year the branches are cut near 
to the parent stock, which is rarely more than 
four feet high. 

The forlorn little town, built round a central 
plaza, was swept and garnished ready for the 
holiday, and having shaken off its usual drowse 
appeared quite lively. We were escorted with 



Laws and Customs. 53 

much dignity to an honored seat on one of the 
flat roofs reached by a rickety ladder. There 
the ancient patriarchs of the tribe, too old to take 
the field, were gathered, and with them old 
witches without witching ways, wrinkled, with- 
ered, graceless, seated in the favorite aborgi- 
nal pose on their heels. The preliminary cere- 
mony was held a few days before, when the first 
ears of corn began to ripen. They were gathered 
by the women, and, like the Jewish first fruits, 
the wave-offering in the temple, were brought 
with solemn reverence to the high priest, who 
alone has the right to husk them for ascertaining 
if the promise of a fair harvest is assured. This 
done, criers were sent through the town an- 
nouncing to the people that, from his bright sun- 
house the god of the Pueblos had smiled upon 
his children in bountiful crops, and they must 
meet at high noon on a certain day and render 
unto him thanksgiving and praise. 

The burning sky of noon, where no cloud 
flings a cooling shadow, scorches the valley with 
tropic fervor, but these children of the wilderness 
love its parching heat and open the solemnities 
when the flooding light is at meridian. 

In the centre of the open plaza four large 
camp-kettles of boiling corn were swung gypsy 
fashion over separate fires. The tops of the 
poles were adorned with twelve ears of corn rep- 
resenting the twelve months of the year. Each 
one was watched by four men, naked to the 
waist, with bodies painted white, red, green, and 
blue. They are the four seasons, and are elected 
for their skill in singing and great powers of en- 
durance. Their duty was to dance round the 
kettles, keep up the fires, and sing songs to Mon- 
tezuma and the unnamed god, keeping time with 
a cornstalk on the edge of the kettle. Did my 
reader ever hear Indian singing? He need never 



54 The Land of the Pueblos. 

want to. It is a long-continued strain of un- 
earthly howls and yells of the sort to drive one 
crazy, to make your flesh, aye, the very marrow 
of your bones creep. 

At exactly noon the grand procession moved, 
led by three Sagamores, holy heralds marching 
ahead, solemn and still as sphinxes. Then came 
thirty-five men, the dancers proper, naked except 
a small embroidered blanket, but appearing clad 
by reason of a coating of white paint barred with 
blue. Their legs and arms were striped with 
red, white, and blue ; green hemlock wreaths 
mixed with red berries of the mistletoe circled 
their arms above the elbow. 

The same ornamentation served as bracelets, 
anklets and necklaces, and resting on the thick 
black locks, newly washed with amole and glossy 
as a blackbird's throat, were crowns of gray eagle 
plumes. The effect of this adorning was that of 
a festal robe, unique and strikingly picturesque. 
Around the knees of the main actors were bands 
of red cloth to which hung small shells of the 
ground-turtle, eagle claws, and antelope hoofs; 
and dangling from the back at the waist was a 
fox tail or a fur robe, the skin of such wild ani- 
mals as were killed by the wearer during the 
year. They walked in Indian file, each appear- 
ing to tread in the same track, bending forward 
as if weighted down with corn, which fiction is 
part of the play. 

The musicians were placed in a conspicuous 
part of the plaza in the chief seats of the syna- 
gogue such artists love. One had a drum, {tombe) 
which he beat unmercifully, another clashed 
clanging, banging things like cymbals, and a cas- 
tinet player dextrously rattled deer hoofs after 
the manner of the jolly end man, our friend and 
brudder Bones. One ambitious artist performed 
on an ornamented whistle made from the bone of 



Laws and Customs. $$ 

a wild turkey's wing, blowing shrilly with unlim- 
ited breath, as St. Louis observed, sotto voce, loud 
enough to split the ears of corn. There was, be- 
sides, a heathenish intrument of torture, whose 
name I failed to obtain, consisting of half a gourd 
with the convex side up ; on this was placed with 
the left hand a smooth stick and across it the 
right hand drew backward and forward a notched 
stick in a sawing manner, making a sound like 
the grinding of corn in the metate. Luckily this 
machine does not make much racket, but what 
there is, is of the quality calculated to turn one 
goose-flesh. The sound of filing saws is rich 
melody in comparison. 

The three sphinxes, members of the council 
who headed the procession, made a short speech 
before each house, the occupants being outside 
and waiting. At special places they joined the 
choral howling of the trains, which proceeded 
with the dire monotony of everything Indian. 
Thus they went from house to house till every 
one was serenaded, and from each roof corn was 
handed and added to the common stock. My 
knowledge of San Domingan being rather lim- 
ited, I am unable to furnish a correct report of the 
brief speeches. Doubtless they were like white 
men's public occasions ; carefully prepared im- 
promptu. These ended, they sung and danced 
to the plaza, circling round the boiling kettles, in 
one hand rattling a sacred gourd containing 
grains of corn, and covered with tribal symbols 
and ancestral totems marked in red paint ; in 
the other swinging a quantity of tortillas (rolls of 
corn bread) tied together with thread, like a 
bunch of cigars. 

The corn is a species of the very hard flint. 
The grains yellow or bluish black and red, some- 
times all three on one cob. The stalk is perhaps 
four feet high, the ears growing near the ground. 



56 The Land of the Pueblos. 

Thill corn cakes, tortillas, are the principal lood 
of Mexican and Indian, and the women pride 
themselves on the skill and speed with which 
they make them. The shelled grains are boiled 
in water with a little lime to soften the skin so 
that it can be pulled off, then it is ground into 
meal by mashing with a long round stone, like 
our rolling-pin, against an oblong, slightly hollowed 
stone called a metate. A little water is added, 
making it the consistence of gruel, and it is 
baked in thin cakes on hot stones or griddles of 
tin or copper. When done they are the color of 
a hornet's nest and tasteless as white paper. 
Once accustomed to them strangers become very 
fond of tortillas. 

At an appointed signal the corn was taken 
from the kettle, burnt in the consecrated fire, and 
the ashes sprinkled over the fields to insure a 
good crop next year ; then another fire was 
kindled, and kettles re-filled with corn, and when 
boiled freely distributed to all the people, who 
heartily enjoyed the banquet. 

Such is the green corn dance ; a yearly de- 
light celebrated in the changeless fashion set be- 
fore these people in the primeval years. New 
and startling figures are not in the program. 
Their ambition is to do all according to the tra- 
ditions of the elders. As the day advanced the 
ecstacy increased, the dancers shuffled and hopped 
as if they would shuffle off this mortal coil. 
Convulsive stamping and leaping made with fran- 
tic gestures ; the din of savage minstrelsy ; the 
guttural, unrhythmed voices and the hideous 
'Hombe^' a hollow log covered at the ends with 
dried hide, made a barbaric uproar that lingers 
long on senses attuned to harmony. 

I must not close without mention of the dogs 
of You-pel-lay. Admitted to that equal sky, 
they were given the right to a voice in the mat- 



Laws and Customs. 57 

ter and toward evening they embarked in a 
tumultuous, unearthly fantasia. As we scaled the 
Israel Putnam hill the soft night wind fell on our 
hot, tired faces like the cool touch of holy water, 
and floated after us the farewell symphonies of 
the revelry. And they were all pow-wow and 
bow-wow. 

Perhaps the classic reader, if I am so fortunate 
as to have one, may be reminded in this festival 
of the haunted vale of Enna and its lovely fables ; 
mythic stories filled with hidden meaning veiled 
by the splendors of the Eleusinian mysteries. It 
is the instinctiv^e spirit of gratitude to the Lord 
of the harvest, the keeper of the destinies ; and 
the poverty of this race and their rude rites are 
to the genius and varied wealth of ancient Greece 
only the difference of blood and civilization 
everywhere between the Old World and the New. 

The squaws wear no wreaths and have no share 
in these ceremonials, but adoring women are the 
same the world over, and out of their own hearts 
create the glory and beauty of the shrines where 
they burn precious incense and kneel for wor- 
ship. They looked on in secret rapture with 
love-light in their eyes, an expression I have 
seen in the face of a listening wife in the senate 
gallery, when the man foremost of all the world 
to her speaks the words which thrill the crowd to 
silence. In Santo Domingo there is no noiseless 
telegraphy of swimming eye or waving hand. 
Little does the sullen red sachem care for the 
subtle flattery of loving admiration. 



5^ The Land of the Pueblos, 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE CITY OF THE PUEBLOS. 

Ten generations of men have come and gone 
since Don Antonio de Espego distilled a subtle 
Spanish essence in El Palacio ; and you may 
break, you may shatter those walls, if you will, 
but the scent of Espagna will hang round it still. 
Under the witchery of that fast-fading charm, a 
troop of attendant graces hover about its portal. 
They bear musical names of sweet meaning, as 
the discreet damsels who welcomed pilgrims to 
the blessed rooms in the House Beautiful. Per- 
fectio (perfection), a worthless peon, in Navaho 
blanket, sweeps the sidewalk ; Benito (the good), 
a shambling Mexican boy, watching his chance 
for a spring at the spoons, brings the daily mail ; 
Mariposa (butterfly), the silliest of Slowboys, 
pushes the baby-wagon; while Angellus, an 
angel whose form has lost its original brightness, 
lazily watches her. Three old witches, whom we 
familiarly call the Macbeths, were baptized some 
centuries ago Feliciana, the Happy ; Rosita, little 
Rose; Hermosa, the Beautiful. 

It is the month of July, and the cotton-wood 
trees of the Plaza are a mass of'tender leafage in 
restless flutter, giving color and cool sound, most 
grateful in a land where sterility is the rule, fer- 
tility the rare and marked exception. The 
acequias are open, and they moisten earth and 
air in the square of alfalfa, or Spanish clover, 
knee-deep. 

Quite out of reach of the shady trees, in the 
fiercest blaze of the sun, sitting on a fragment of 
the Rocky Mountains, is a statuesque figure, 
which might represent the oldest of the Fates, 



The City of the Pueblos, 59 

the most furious of the Furies. It is Blandina, 
the fair one, the soft one, of Santa Fe. Her face, 
hkeone of her own foot-hills, is worn into gutters 
and seams. Not like them so moulded by the 
action of water, but by exposure to sharp sun- 
light and withering wind, destructive to beauty, 
which make even young persons appear old. 
Her skin is a parchment, which looks as though 
it might date back to — I was about to say the 
Flood ; but that would imply that at some pre- 
historic era she had felt the sanitary influence of 
a shower-bath, and I would not harm an inno- 
cent fellow-creature by such an unjust suspicion. 
Herdraperiesarea mere dissolving view. There 
sits the Mexican woman, day after day, not 
begging, nor even reaching out her hand, but 
following the passer-by with beseeching eyes, 
haunting as the eyes of the dead. Like all the 
very poor, she keeps a dog and smokes inces- 
santly. 

The great mass of population here is very 
swarthy, and there are but few who have no 
Indian blood in their veins. The traveller in New 
Mexico may breakfast in a ranche where the oc- 
cupants have the clear cinnamon hue; dine at 
another where the faces are ashen, like the 
Malay's ; and pass the night at a third where 
the courteous host will show the deep Vandyke 
brown of the Negro. The explanation is easy. 
The different inhabitants of the several places are 
sprung from various tribes. The Ute has a dingy, 
tallow complexion, the Apache is a dirty ashen 
gray, while the Mohave girls have cheeks of 
almost Spanish transparency. 

Besides the luxuries and refinements of the 
furthest East, the Moors left behind them in 
Spain many descendants, the children of Spanish 
marriages. Some of these were among the 
dauntless adventurers who came to Nueva Mejko 



6© The Land of the Pueblos. 

in the XVIth century. They intermarried with 
the Indians, minghng three strains of blood, 
which mixture is called Mexican. The conquer- 
ing foreigners were not all olive-skinned. Some 
of the first who sailed the sea boasted, and evi- 
dently were, of the sangre azul, brought into 
Spain by the wild Goths. The lover of Prescott 
will remember his description of the watchful 
gray eyes of Cortez,and the clear blue eyes of 
Alvarado, whose yellow locks, fair forehead, and 
beard yellow as gold, gave him a peculiar expres- 
sion of sunniness, from which the Aztecs called 
him Toiiitiah — "Child of the Sun." Scattered 
at long distances through New Mexico are a few 
ricos, of almost Saxon fairness, remote descendants 
of the people who brought the exquisite archi- 
tecture of Asia to perfect flower in the shades of 
the Alhambra — departing traces of the northern 
tribes to which southern Europe owes some of 
its best elements of strength. Their blue eyes, 
glancing from under the slouched sombrero, and 
sunburnt hair, stringing down the scrape, affect 
one strangely. It is like finding Albinos among 
the Zuiii and Moqui Indians, and involuntarily 
we ask: "What manner of men are these?" 
Tawny color is seen in every grade of society and 
some of the highest citizens are plainly of Indian 
extraction. The restless energy of the Spaniard, 
the quick preception of the Moor, even the cun- 
ning of the roving Apache, appear to be lost in the 
sluggish current which lazily beats in the pulses 
of the modern Mexican. 

Among the common people is one distinguish- 
ing trait, the utter lack of beauty. I have fre- 
quented every day crowds, and haunted churches, 
where they are to be seen at their best, and have 
found not one attractive face. Nowhere on earth 
comes age so fast or in such repulsive shape. A 
lovely baby changes to the plain young girl, 



The City of the Pueblos. 6i 

somewhat comely, at fifteen. At twenty-five not 
a vestige of freshness remains ; not a Hne to re- 
mind one of beauty vanished forever. And oh ! 
the hideous hags squatted against the walls ! 
There is no speculation in those eyes, fixed as 
the eternal gaze of the Sphinx. They look old 
as that grim female, and I would as soon think 
stone lips could part into a company smile, dis- 
playing false teeth, as that these could break into 
laughter or song. I wonder what they are 
thinking about, if they think at all, or if an earth- 
quake would make them jump. Assuredly, they 
are the most opaque of terrestrial bodies, and, 
under the old black shawl, they sit immovable, 
as though all the forces of the universe (rarely 
heard from in Santa Fe) could not start them 
from their secure poise. 

Dr. Holmes says " the finest human fruit, and 
especially the finest women, we get in New Eng- 
land are raised under glass. Protection is what 
the transplanted Aryan requires in this New 
England climate." I fancy "protection" is what 
the women needs in the ''excessive," the terri- 
torial climate analogous to that of Central Asia. 
On this bleak, elevated plateau, where the dry- 
ness is so intense that meat is cured without 
smoke or salt, the juices of the human body evapo- 
rate, leaving early wrinkles. I have seen men 
in high health return from a month of camping 
among the Rocky Mountains with crow's feet 
wofully deepened and the appearance of having 
" aged " in a very short time. 

Perhaps dirt and low diet have helped to finish 
the completed ugliness of the Santa Fe witches ; 
but we know extremes of every sort waste ner- 
vous force, and hasten the steps of the common 
enemy, who sharpens his scythe for the faces of 
women, and shakes the sand in the glass when he 
measures their years. 



62 The Land of the Pueblos, 

Moisture, when it does come, is not the gentle 
rain from Heaven, swelling bud and flower, as 
well as human hearts, to thankfulness. There 
is no dew ; nor is there showering mist, like that 
which went up from the earth and watered the 
garden eastward in Eden. We have, instead, 
high wind-storms, rain streaming in torrents, pre« 
ceded by an atmosphere where men and animals 
are acting lightning-rods for electric currents ; 
keen, close lightning and the " live thunder " of 
which Byron sung. Suddenly the mighty music 
stops. The sun flashes out in unveiled splendor, 
flooding the world with blinding light, and we 
are tempted to tread a sun-dance in worship of 
the glittering God of the Pueblos, who inhabits 
eternity, lord of Heaven and earth, son of the 
mornmg and father of all the days. 



CHAPTER V. 

MEXICAN COTTAGES. 

Across the way are a dozen Mexicans, wrapped 
in greasy old blankets, sitting like four-and- 
twenty blackbirds all in a row. I know their 
faces, and have not missed one in a month. 
They live in condition of body and mind hard 
for an American to realize, A kind of present 
existence, without loving reference to the past; 
a passive waiting for the future, without an in- 
quiry or a wish, a fear or a hope. Small, lank, 
dark-brown fellows ; eight with high cheek- 
bones and thick lips, betraying Indian blood; 
hair long, straight, black ; eyes dark, suspicious, 
wavering ; habitually silent ; when speaking, 



Mexican Cottages. 63 

with gloomy indifference, in a voice sad as mem- 
ory. Elsewhere they would go as tramps ; but 
tramping is a grand fatigue. They prefer to sit 
round, instead. 

It is said this is the bearing of every con- 
quered race ; but such is the average Mexican 
wherever he is found. About the hill of royal 
Chapultepec, at the base of the pyramid of 
Cholula — last vestige of Aztecan grandeur — he 
basks in the sun with the chameleons and lizards, 
docile in temper, patient under abuse, idle as the 
wind that lifts his long, black locks. Think you 
such men care for advantages, natural or politi- 
cal — They know the joy of a splendid destiny ful- 
filled or the anguish of such a destiny lost? 
They come of brave blood — Spaniard, Moor, 
Indian — and how well they fight for their own, 
the United States, France, and Austria may tes- 
tify ; but to us never did life appear so empty, 
aimless, and joyless as the life of these sitters in 
the sun. 

The puzzling question of to-day is : How do 
they keep soul and body together ? Let us find 
one in his home, if the dingy den he inhabits 
may be called by that dear name. Leaving the 
Plaza, where vagrants most do congregate, we 
pass the cottages of'' the military " (on whose 
heads be the blessing of those who entertain 
strangers), cross a sandy arroya, through which in 
the rainy season a mountain torrent sweeps roar- 
ing. Westward the straggling suburb stretches 
toward the foothills, and, stumbling along a stony 
path, we suddenly come up against a wall. It 
is about six feet high, made of mud mixed with 
ashes, coal, cow-horns, hoofs, mule-bones, barrel- 
hoops, the wheels of a baby- wagon, cans, broken 
bottles, boots, curry-combs, every refuse sub- 
stance that may swell the mass in a treeless re- 
gion. The top of the wall bristles with scraps of 



64 The Land of the Pueblos. 

tin, which make it hard to climb. I doubt if 
Romeo would try it, even to seize the white 
wonder of Juliet's hand. The gate is made of 
upright posts of dwarf cedar, thick as a man's 
wrist, bound together by rawhide strings, and 
groans and creaks in a dismal note as we push 
it on wooden hinges. Not a trace of iron is to 
be seen. 

This formidable outwork encloses three pup- 
pies, of the breed called cast-iron, which look 
like magnified rats and act wonderfully like cats. 
The proprietor of the estate and his spouse, in 
the doorway, sit in the artistic pose called squat, 
at leisure profound, if not elegant. He is evi- 
dently made of the same clay as his wretched 
mud shanty ; might have sprouted up from the 
ground or dropped down from the eaves. 

As we enter, they rise in unembarrassed polite- 
ness. He removes his slouch of a hat with de- 
corous gravity, and the wife entreats us to enter, 
saying, with the air of a princess in exile, we do 
her great honor. The Spanish flavor is strong 
here, which may be the reason she wears drag- 
ging bright calicoes all the year, and sits in the 
door even v/hen the snow falls. Her raven black 
hair and large, full eyes hint of by-gone beauty ; 
but it is by-gone. Premature wrinkles are worn 
deep by the shriveling wind, her skin is swart 
and sunburnt, and the roses in her cheek are 
only ashes of roses, 

"Would she give us a drink of water?" 

" With much pleasure, Seriora'' 

She diffuses an air of elegance over her pink 
calico toilet by throwing a dreary old black shawl 
round her head ; and, scorning to lift her volumi- 
nous train (twelve yards for a dollar), hastens to 
the nearest accqiiia, or irrigating ditch, fills a mug 
of Indian pottery, and offers it with sweetness 
and grace. No new country exuberance about 



Mexican Cottages. 65 

her, nor revelling imagination, like Dick Swiv- 
eller's ; but a power of enchantment and a lofty 
self-poise which no surprise can startle or disturb. 
It is found alike in splendor or in squalor, the 
<< grand air" of Old Spain, descended to all who 
have a dash of her blood. 

My hostess regrets the water is not wine, and 
so catching is the fine charm that, ensnared and 
deluded, I am hardly sure it is not wine, and 
drink their health in the miserable ditch-water 
and am cheered by responsive gracias. I try to 
explain that I am under silken bonds — ribbons 
red, blue, white — not to look upon wine when it 
is red ; but it is their first hearing of temperance, 
and they do not understand. She invites me to 
a seat on the cold ion — a wool mattress folded 
against the wall and covered with a blanket, 
which serves the double purpose of bed by night 
and sofa by day, an Oriental custom, come down 
to them from the Moors. I excuse myself, being 
in mortal fear of old settlers in the mattress. 
There a lovely baby, with no dress to speak of, 
is tossing up its heels. I ask some questions, 
thinking of bright eyes far away ; and she pret- 
tily says baby has no year yet, and her name 
is Lola Juanita Eloisa. 

The earthen floor is swept with a bunch of 
broom, without handle, leaning against the mud 
fireplace in the corner of the room. There are 
no andirons, shovel, or tongs, and when fire is 
made the wood is placed on end against the back 
of the fireplace. A chest, a few pieces of crockery 
on a pine table, complete the furniture. Can you 
imagine love in such a cottage ? Undoubtedly 
there is love, and in the poorest jacal there is no 
brawling man, scolding, slapping wife, or crying 
baby. If the walls crack, they are daubed by 
Magdalena Rosalia with a fresh plaster of yeso, 
or gypsunl, put on with a glove of sheepskin. If 



66 The Land of the Pueblos. 

the outside flakes and cracks too badly, it is 
smeared with a new coating of soft mud. In the 
spring the ground floor has another layer of clay, 
the fireplace a thin coating of tierra amarilla, or 
yellow wash, and house-cleaning is ended. Does 
the roof leak, a dab of mud is slapped on. Is 
the outer wall in holes, a lump of clay will stop 
the wind away. There is no window, and when 
the door is closed the house must be dark and 
stifling as a dungeon. Above the fireplace, done 
in hectic chromo and framed in tin is a copy of 
the divine Madonna in the Louvre, named " Queen 
of Heaven"; a band of blue stars across her 
forehead, a tinsel crescent under her feet. Hang- 
ing below it is a plaster crucifix, under glass. 
When the bell chimes, Magdalena Rosalia will 
seek the old cathedral, whose vaulted interior is 
filled with shadows and silence — among them a 
few figures, motionless as the dead asleep under 
the floors — say her prayers across the rosary, 
confess, and be absolved. But Trinidad Gonza- 
lez Ribera, in the gauzy blanket and vanishing 
pantaloons, will sit dozing in the sun, deaf to the 
ringing music, unmindful of bell, book, or candle. 
I pass from under the hospitable mud roof with 
. repeated adios and a feeling of unreality. I look 
for a garden. There is none. There are no 
chickens, no pig, no cow, no grass within the 
gravelly enclosure. 

The only sign of life is a famished donkey, 
browsing on the strip of grass which borders 
the acequia by the roadside. He is the property 
of our new friends, and occasionally the man of 
many names takes him to the mountains, loads 
him with limbs of dead piTiones, and sells them for 
twenty-five cents a backload. Stopping on the 
plain, he digs a few roots of ainole\ or soap-weed ; 
the yucca aloifolia, which we cultivate for its rich 
cream -white blossoms. This is for the washing 
done by Magdalena Rosalia. 



Mexican Cottages. 67 

Do not think she briskly knocks so early Mon- 
day morning or comes Sunday night for the 
clothes, as wicked Protestants have been known to 
do. No ; this daughter of a proud line will not 
shame her high ancestry by vulgar haste. She 
saunters along about noon, seats herself at ease, 
makes affectionate inquiries as to every member 
of the household, with a gift of continuance and 
native talent for rigmarole which would do honor 
to a legislative body. She deliberately ties the 
bundle of clothes, balances it on her head, and 
departs with sweeping courtesy and majestic flirt 
of pink calico train. 

After walking a few blocks, she stops for a rest, 
adjusts her bundle into a cushion on the ground, 
takes from her pocket a little package of corn- 
husks, fills one with fine-cut tobacco from a paper 
box, rolls it into a cigarritOt and enjoys a smoke. 
A Monday picture in Santa Fe is the long row 
of wash-women, with the everlasting black 
shawls over their heads, sitting in the shade of 
mud walls, quietly gossiping and smoking. To 
get the clothes home is exertion enough for one 
day. 

Tuesday she repairs to the Rio Santa Fe weak- 
ened by irrigating ditches to a shallow brook, and 
on its sandy bank makes a little fire for washing. 
Her machine is one bucket and a square tin box. 
She pounds the clothes between two stones. Flan- 
nels full, buttons fly, embroideries are a dream of 
things that were. She boils them in the box, 
set on granite ; rinses in the pure snow-water 
of the Rio ; and spreads them on the rocks to 
dry, as the young Roman girls do along the 
Tiber. Friday, in comes Magdalena Rosalia, with 
all beautifully white, folded in an Indian bas- 
ket shaped like a deep saucer. 

The proceeds of this labor buy a bag of blue 
corn-meal and the necessary tobacco. Twice a 



68 The Land of the Pueblos. 

week they can afford a stev/ of chili con came 
(our old friend hash, made fiery hot with red 
pepper) and the hving is made. As respects 
worldly goods, come he soon or late, Death will 
find this pair exactly as they entered life, exactly 
as their fathers lived and died, in the peaceful 
depths of contented poverty. Magdalena Rosalia 
walks as though she was born in the purple, to 
Hve like the lilies who toil not neither do they 
spin ; and Trinidad Gonzalez Ribera is free of 
care as though his olcf Navajo blanket was a 
king's coronation robe. At the grave's edge it 
not unfrequently happens that his mourning 
friends, too poor to spare his blanket, strip it 
from his body, and lay him away in the dust from 
whence he sprung, shroudless and uncoffined. 

These are the happy people sighed for by weary 
poets in all the ages. Simple souls who love the 
sun, live close to Nature, and in the dirt house, 
to which nothing is added, where nothing is 
repaired except by additional dirt, are serene as 
summer, filled with a measureless content. Can 
we say so much for the eager, ambitious con- 
queror in a struggle, a battle, and a race ; always 
getting ready to live, looking to the future when 
he may have time to rest and enjoy ? 

The Mexican does not wait for better times. 
There is no day but this. He begins now and 
the future takes care of itself. 

Oh ! tired woman of '' the States," running on 
your nerve, trying to do all the public demands 
of you and all you require of yourself, leave the 
place where the door bell rings every half hour. 
Quit worrying over goose-parties for the Sunday- 
school, Jarley's Vv^ax-works for the firemen ; slip 
away from strawberry parties for the Gaboon Mis- 
sion ; slacken the fevered rush ; loosen the strings 
at concert pitch and ready to snap ; go to the 
Mexican woman, consider her ways, and learn 
how to rest. 



lo the Turquots Mines. 69 

Of course, you, my precious reader, know 
many things she does not. There never has 
been a woman's meeting in this territory of 
207,000 square miles ; and, in consequence, the 
weak-minded creature is not aware that men are 
great rascals, rob women of their rights, and bar 
the avenues to wealth and fame against them. 
Sing the Iliad of your w^oes, and it will fall on 
heedless ears. And, though you harp how 
Juliet's poetry flew up the kitchen-chimney and 
Portia's eloquence burnt out over the gridiron 
where her 

" red right hand grew raging hot, 

Like Crannier's at the steaky 

she would quietly adjust the old black shawl 
(final remnant and melancholy reminder of the 
gay rebosa) and count the days till the next 
fiesta. 

There are heights beyond her reach, and beyond 
your reach too, in spite of mighty purpose. She 
does not strain after them, wearing herself to skin 
and bone. While you, who have tasted bitter fruit 
from the tree of knowledge, are ready to die in a 
losing struggle for the unattainable, she loiters in 
happy valley, by good spirits tenanted, and in 
her easy shoe wears the four-leaved clover of 
perpetual content. 



CHAPTER VI. 

TO THE TURQUOIS MINES. 

Reader, are you the sort of person who rushes 
through life the first passenger on the earliest 
train ; who hires the fastest coach at Niagara, to 
exhaust the Falls, the Whirlpool, and Lundy's 
Lane in half a day, and are then ready to whiz off 



70 The Land of the Pueblos. 

ill the night express? If you are, then are we 
no company for each other, and may as well part 
at once. You are entirely unfit for frontier travel 
and may go this minute. Adiosf Adios! 

But you who lingered by the Rapids; who 
have a kindly glance for the smutty sentinel at 
the brake ; who do not threaten to die when the 
gentlemanly conductor fills the car full and corks 
it tight as a champagne bottle, but live on in 
order to cheer a gasping fellow-martyr; who 
help the mediaeval lady, of convex outline, trav- 
eling with two geraniums and a canary bird, yet 
keep a sympathetic eye for the young pair in the 
new of the moon, murmuring, as they pass, I 
too have dwelt in Arcadia. — You are the one I 
love. Yours are the feet, beauteous on the 
mountain-top, that go gypsying with me through 
this New World, which Agassiz tell us is the 
Old. 

We travel in a hap -hazard way, varied with 
many a digression, following no train but our 
own fancies. We stop to speak with the natives 
by the way, try to sketch a Gifford sunset on a 
gritty scratch-book, and stray from the road for 
bits of cheating mica, and for flowers which wilt 
in the gathering, and change in our hands to dry 
stalks and grasses. 

The mountains are eternally beautiful, always 
changing, forever new, and all about us is picture. 
Walking for rest, the grama grass is soft and pleas- 
ant under the pilgrim's feet; the sun always 
shines ; the days are like the enchanted rooms in 
the fairy castle, each more beautiful than every 
other; the air is balm, and oil, and wine. 

There is nothing pleasanter than such travel, 
unless it be to float between blue and blue among 
the Cyclades, and idly drift along the tideless 
sea, to catch the far echo of the syren songs that 
wooed the wandering Ulysses. 



To the Turquois Mines. 71 

And now for the Turquois Mines. 

To one who was an early and ardent admirer 
of Lalla Rookhy the word turquois brings up 
memories of old or, rather, young days among 
fragrant orchard trees, meadows pink and white 
with clover-blooms, and a certain fine-printed, 
sight-destroying volume of the poet whose hun- 
dredth birthday we have just celebrated. It is 
like a fading dream to look from the shadowy 
half-way house at the girl embowered among 
singing birds, reading, with dazzled eyes, of 
swords inlaid with rich marquetry, talismans, and 
characters of the scimitar of Solomon. Arms of 

" The wild warriors of the Turquois Hills," 

who rallied to the white veil and glittering banner 
of the False Prophet. 

The perfumed and sparkling poem which 
thrilled so many soft hearts at life's morning is 
not loved by lovers of this age. Only the setting 
generation — -and they mainly for the sake of old 
times — read "The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan," 
and in the twilight pensively sing "Araby's 
Daughter," with voice not altogether fresh. In 
the days when that fond farewell was first sung it 
was taught that turquoises belonged chiefly to 
the Turkish and Persian Empires. Since then 
the ceaseless delving of the antiquary has given 
to the world such treasure far removed from the 
Shah's dominions. There are mines of high 
antiquity in Mount Sinai, and a bronze finger- 
ring, of unique pattern, set with turquoises, has 
been discovered in the Wady Meghara of that 
peninsula. It dates back to the vague, unreal 
period of the Fourth Dynasty; and amulets of 
the same material are unearthed in the ruins of 
ancient Egyptian towns. They are found in 
Arabia Petrea, in a stratum of red sandstone, of 
finer blue and darker shade than the Persian, and 



72 The Land of the Pueblos. 

the visitor of Roman museums sees antique 
cameos and intaglios carved in Arabian turquois, 
sadly faded and tarnished by long burial. Only 
a few in the Vatican still retam their color. 

Those of Khorassan are sold in Russia on 
sticks, tied in bunches like quills, and are in de- 
mand by jewelers of St. Petersburg, for enriching 
sword-hilts, handles of daggers, belts, pipes, etc. 
The Shah is reported to have in keeping all the 
finest gems, allowing only the inferior grades to 
leave the country. 

In a curious old treatise on precious stones 
the turquois is described as a delicate and sen- 
sitive jewel, which has an affinity for its owner, 
changing color with his health and varying for- 
tunes. The fact that they do change color in a 
wholly unaccountable manner may explain the 
fanciful notion. Human hearts are the same 
everywhere and in all ages, and many a myth 
and superstition of the East is reproduced in 
Mexico — plain testimony that Orientalism dwells 
not alone in its sky and the palm trees of the 
valley. 

It interested me greatly to find that the pretty 
legend of the Orient attaches to the turquois 
of the New World, called by the ancient Aztec 
clialchidte (pronounced chal-chew-e-te). 

Like the Asiatic, the Aztecan believed it 
brought good fortune to the wearer, glowed in 
sympathy with the healthful beating of his pulse, 
and ominously paled in prophecy of a coming 
misfortune. The power of the Montezumas was 
absolute, as their dominion was vast ; and wher- 
ever the green banner of the king marked the 
limit of his realm, the cJialchuite was, by imperial 
decree, forbidden to the commonalty — the jewel 
sacred to the royal house. When the five am- 
bassadors from Totonac came to the tent of 
Cortez, at Vera Cruz, they defied the law (being 



To the Turqiiois Mines. 73 

then at war with the fierce and bloody Aztec), 
and wore the proscribed jewels — *'gems of a bright 
blue stone, in their ears and nostrils."'*' 

Readers of Prescott will remember his pictur- 
esque page describing the city of Tezcuco, where 
North American civilization reached its height. 
In the royal palace was a hall of justice, called 
the '' Tribunal of God," where the judge decided 
important causes and passed sentence of death, 
seated on a throne of pure gold, inlaid with the 
consecrated turquois. 

The art of cutting gems was carried to high 
perfection by the Aztecs, and the carved chal- 
cludte is noted by every writer on the Spanish 
Conquest. 

Father Sahagun calls it a jasper of very green 
color, "or a common smaragdus," so precious to 
the infidel that the use of them was prohibited 
by royal edict to any but the nobility. " It rep- 
resented to them everything that was excellent 
in its kind ; for which reason they put such a 
stone in the mouth of distinguished chiefs who 
died," like the coin poetry offered to the grim 
ferryman of the souls of the Greek dead.f They 
were valued by the heathen above all earthly 
possessions, and, therefore, at first held in great 
estimation by the Spaniards. The art of polish- 
ing them came from Heaven, the gift of the god 
Quetzelcoatl, a gentle deity who instructed the 
Aztecs in the use of metals, agriculture, and the 
arts of government. It was in the golden age of 
Anahuac, when an ear of Indian corn was as 
much as one man could carry, when the air was 
filled with the melody of birds, the earth with 
flowers, and cotton in the field took of its own 

*Prescott's History .of the Conquest of Mexico, Vol. I. 
' t Father Sahagun thus describes these precious stones: "ia* 
chalchuUes son rerdes y no transparentes mezcladas de bianco, 
usanlas, mucho^aa j^rinciiJales trayendolas las munecas atadas en 
hilo, y aquello es sencU deque esijersona noble el que las traey— 
Hist, de Nueva Espaila, Lib. ii. chap. 8. 



74 The Land of the Pueblos. 

accord the rich dye of cochineal. Chohila was 
his favorite city, where the massy ruins of the 
temple dedicated to his worship form one of the 
most interesting relics of ancient Mexico. By 
command of the superior deities, he took leave 
of his worshipers on the shores of the Mexican 
Gulf, under promise to return, and, entering his 
wizard skiff, made of serpents' skins, sailed away 
to the blooming shores of happy Tlapallan. 

The earliest mention of this historic gem is 
made by the honest old soldier, Bernal Diaz. 
Four chalcl mites, counted the most precious offer- 
ings from his treasury, were among the first pres- 
ents sent by Montezuma to Cortez. " A gift to 
our emperor, designed as a mark of highest 
respect, as each of them, they assured us, was 
worth more than a wagon-load of gold." The 
covetous Spaniard was enraptured with the gold- 
dust and jewels, and gave in exchange — a sorry 
return for the munificence of the imperial present 
— a few Holland shirts, and a string of trumpery 
beads, strongly perfumed with musk. 

On sending the priceless Aztecan diamonds, 
'* worth four wagon-loads of gold," to ValladoHd, 
it turned out, rather awkwardly for the Spaniards, 
that they were not worth so many wagon-loads of 
earth. 

The gossiping Her odotus of the New World 
alludes to the chalchidte again in his narrative of 
the first meeting of Montezuma and Cortez, on 
the Causeway, at the entrance to Mexico, city ot 
enchantment. That fatal day, when the force of 
his own genius brought the representative of the 
strongest empire of the Old World face to face 
with the mightiest monarch of the New, its pale 
lustre shone dimly in the fringe of the canopy 
held by the Caciques above the hapless mon- 
arch's head. " A canopy of exeeding great 
value," says the quaint chronicler, " decorated with 
green feathers, gold and silver, chalchuis stones 



To the I'urquois Mines. 75 

and pearls, which hung down from a bordering 
altogether curious to look at." 

Its delicately-traced veins, occasionally of 
greenish hue, betray a near kinship to malachite. 
This rich-tinted mineral is finer than the dark- 
colored stone of Russia, and though by no means 
costly as Shylock's turquoise, the chalcJmite still 
holds its high repute among the various tribes of 
the red race. 

It is valued by the Navajo beyond the garnets 
and beryls of his own country, and is used as 
currency among the half-civilized Pueblos of New 
Mexico and Arizona. The Indian girls along the 
Colorado wear it is as a love-token in their neck- 
laces ; the roving and tameless Apache covets a 
blue bead as an amulet ; the degraded Ute loves 
its soft glimmer ; and when a Mohave chief would 
assume regal splendor, he sticks a three-cornered 
piece of chalcJmite in his royal nose. 

Such associations fresh in mind, it was with 
extreme pleasure I prepared for an excursion to 
Los Cerillos, where these blue-eyed gems are 
found, the only mines as yet discovered this side 
the Russian seas. Twenty -six miles southwest 
of Santa Fe are the long, narrow ranges of gold 
and silver-bearing mountains — Placer, Sandia, 
Manzana, etc. — which form an unbroken chain 
on the eastern side of the Rio Grande. Among 
them are three turquoise mines, which anciently 
supplied the Indian market of North America. 

A roomy ambulance, drawn by four mules ; 
various delights, liquid and sohd, in a mess-chest ; 
a party of choice spirits, like my reader ; and a 
morning such as breaks nowhere but over the 
hills of Paradise and New Mexico — this was our 
start. 

Our driver was a young Mexican, bearing a 
lengthy and musical name, with which I shall not 
serenade you. Juan Fresco (Cool John) is a 



^6 The Land of the Pueblos. 

minute fragment of it. He was very spruce in a 
brand-new suit of kerseymere, of the sort sold 
throughout the frontier by Israehtes in whom 
there is much guile ; a handsome Navajo blanket 
closely woven and brightly striped ; and was 
happy in possession of a limitless supply of corn 
husks and powdered tobacco, which he rolled 
into cigarettes and smoked, without so much as 
saying, By your leave. Had he known it was 
impolite, he would have implored pardon, with 
many sweet-sounding words. Mexican women 
smoke constantly, as men do, and he does not 
know better. He can live and does live on a 
dollar a week ; and, with tortillas, onions, red 
pepper, and once in a great while a mutton stew, 
thrives and drives the ambulance. They say that 
there is Indian blood in him; that he is cold as 
death and treacherous as a tiger-cat ; but I do not 
believe it. 

In this high, dry country, corresponding with 
Western Asia, the tendency of the human body 
is to Arab leanness, and Juan Fresco, who grew 
to man's estate under this fierce Syrian sun, sit- 
ting against the mud wall of a Syrian hut, has a 
soft Syrian face. No positive beauty (I have 
never seen out-door people except Arabs who 
have), but comely features, unchanging, melan- 
choly eyes, and a gentle, passive voice, very 
winsome. 

The festal day found Juan Fresco highly em- 
bellished with a yellow sash tied tightly around 
his waist, securing a long knife (iiavajci) in its 
folds. Every Spaniard can use the knife with 
skill, and in his hands it becomes a dreadful 
weapon. He can cast it with exact aim and un- 
erring certainty into a post or into the heart of 
an enemy at a considerable distance away ; and 
wherever there is Spanish blood the navaga is 
the favorite weapon, not always concealed about 



To the Turquois Mines. 77 

his person. Our muleteer took his pleasure sadly 
as any Englishmen ; but his sadness is only for 
strangers. He is leader of the band which goes 
from house to house playing under the windows 
— the sweet Spanish invitation to the ball ; gayly 
thrums the guitar at the light fandango ; and can 
dance till morning as well as hold his own in any 
affray that may grow out of the wild license of 
the baile. 

Occasionally he leaped from his seat for a pock- 
etful of stones, gathering them as the wagon 
moved on, and throwing them at the heads of the 
mules ; at the same time muttering, on the ledger 
lines below, sacred words mixed with names of 
saints. The Mexican insists a mule cannot be 
made to understand without such urging; and they 
have a proverb: "An ass's ears are made long 
in order to catch oaths." 

[N. B. — There is reason to believe that a like 
superstition attaches to the Army of the United 
States.] 

Leaving the venerable city of the Pueblos, we 
crossed the Santa Fe River, which in Indiana 
would be called a spring branch. I have often 
gone over it dry shod. But the poverty of the 
Spanish language allows only one word for run- 
ning water — Rio, translated river. The Santa Fe 
Mountains round about us are a part of the great 
Rocky Mountain system, connecting on the north 
with the Spanish Peaks and Raton Mountains, 
including many whose summits are silvered with 
perpetual snow. A series of high, picturesque 
chains, in the morning-glow robed with a trans- 
parent purple haze, of such exquisite tint one can 
hardly realize those airy pyramids in a fair bor- 
der-land- between us and heaven are, indeed, up- 
heavals of earth, veined with quartz and based on 
coarse red granite. 

Words cannot picture aught so fair. The 



yS The Land of the Pueblos, 

faintest violet, the softest heliotrope are coarse 
and hard beside the dreamy, poetic color, which 
appeals to the eye as dim aeolian soundings touch 
the ear, charming the fancy with vague ideas of 
a viewless beauty within the floating veil. 

I cannot make you understand. Come and 
see the transfiguration which makes rock-ribbed 
hills appear like tents of light, lovely enough for 
angels to rest in on their upward flight. 

The plain was smooth as a prairie, and our 
road free of stone. The reader must not imagine 
it lay among Alpine scenery, with huge peaks 
towering to the sky, forbidding our advance, 
yielding at last to reveal smiling valleys and hid- 
den hamlets, nestling close to the hillsides in 
narrow glens. Here all is on the same magnifi- 
cent scale. The plains are broad as the sum- 
mits are high ; the refined atmosphere so intensely 
clear the light is like a reflection from snow. No 
such extensive views are in Europe or any 
country where the air holds moisture, and some- 
times the landscapes seem absolutely limitless. 

The Sierras are short, uneven spurs from the 
main line. They have disturbed the overlying 
strata in the shape of mesas (tables) of solid rock, 
which are a distinguishing feature of Rocky 
Mountain scenery, giving it a grotesque, fantas- 
tic beauty. The process of erosion has formed in 
colossal size copies of the grandest structures of 
man's art, and towering columns, temples with 
sharp pinnacles, scattered pillars rise abruptly 
from the centre of plains desolate and forsaken 
as the wilderness of Engedi — strange and solemn 
sights. In the Painted Desert are snow-white 
mesas^ the craie blanche composition of the chalk 
clifls on the south coast of England, which dazzle 
the eye, reflecting the sunlight like palaces of 
alabaster or of ice. The stone corridors of Kar- 
nak and Philae are the work of pigmies com- 



To the Turquois Mines. 79 

pared with this noble architecture, wrought by 
slow processes in secret places, 

"Made by Nature for herself." 

Sometimes the mesa shapes into a rose-red wall^ 
with fluted columns that uphold the sky. Again 
it is a group of gray pyramids, a thousand or 
twelve hundred feet high ; or an isolated, broken 
dome, worn smooth by the weather, picturesque 
in the extreme. 

Nothing affords such changes of coloring as. 
the variegated marls, lying in regular bands of 
red, orange, green, blue, of rainbow hue, striped 
and interstratihed with belts of purple, bluish 
white, and mottled veins of exceeding richness. 

Strangely enough, the traveler occasionally 
finds himself riding above these singular forma- 
tions, and lookmg down on the " Painted Rocks.'" 

The sheer sides of a mesa of gray limestone,, 
mixed with blue clay and capped with a rim of 
pillared basalt, are singularly like fabrics of hewn 
stone. I have seen low walls of even height 
reaching long distances, precisely like field-walls, 
laid by skillful masons. These, in the neighbor- 
hood of stately /^m^^.f, with the fair finish at the 
top, explain how an explorer, afraid to make 
near approach, should go away and give accounts 
of vast cities, with gallant banners on the walk 
enclosed in heavy outworks. 



So The Land of the Pueblos. 

CHAPTER VII. 

TO THE TURQUOIS MINES. 

Traveling westward, there came to our view 
the first Placer Mountain ; behind it the melon- 
shaped Sandia, 13,000 feet in air; and far south- 
ward the detached range of the Manzana Moun- 
tains. A plateau, the highest of equal area on 
the globe, varied with sterile vegas and dreary 
sierras, which reminded the early adventurers of 
their own Old Castile, and so like it one can 
imagine it had once been the home of wandering 
tribes, which have long since taken up their 
spears, struck their tents, and sought new camps 
in the furthest East. 

The grama grass is low' and diy, like wiry 
moss, and in the distance takes a wan, ashen hue, 
more ghastly than white. The cactus is the only 
shrub in sight. A gaunt, starved thing, the leper 
of the vegetable world, forbidding our approach. 

The lively prairie dog (who is no dog, but a 
marmot) saluted as we passed. Having early 
learned the fifth beatitude, I suppress a descrip- 
tion of him. Nor shall we ask how he exists 
without water, or seek to know if there is a snake 
at the bottom of his den, and a strange bird 
dwelling there in peace and safety. 

It was June; but not the leafy month of June. 
The only timber — dwarf cedar — which can grow 
in this barren soil was cut away years ago ; and 
absence of trees includes absence of birds. The 
friendly trill and flutter heard about nests in 
shady places are sadly missed. Now and then a 
black wing flapped overhead, and a crow flew 
down in the road. Living equally well on seed, 
roots, flesh, he thrives alike in all places. And, 



To the Turqiiois Mines. 8i 

except this one sign of life, we may journey in 
some directions a whole day and see neither man 
nor beast, bird nor insect. We missed the wood- 
land scents, too ; the forest fragrance of mint, 
thyme, pennyroyal, and the beeches, whose shad- 
ows are the curtains of the morning, holding its 
freshness against the power of the sun till high 
noon. The eye soon wearies of the leaden hues, 
and longs for the dark leafage which is the glory 
of the Mississippi Valley. The blank, scorched 
plain, lying stark and still in the fierce, white 
light, brought a sense of loneliness and depression 
impossible to shake off. There was no rest for 
the sight or the soul. 

But what is this apparition starting from a dis- 
tant clump of greasewood — a grisly animal, 
apparently neither brute nor human? Rapidly 
coming toward us, we recognize a creature of the 
genus JioiJio. <' In the desert no one meets 3. 
friend," says the Oriental proverb ; and there was 
a general stir for arms among the defenders, and 
mute shaking of the head, not intended to be 
seen, when nothing more serviceable than a cac- 
tus cane was found in the ambulance. 

Every reader knows the border is the chosen 
field of the dime-novel hero ; a safe refuge for 
cut-throats and desperadoes of the lowest grades, 
who live by robbery and plunder, and that it is 
wise for the tourist to put on his pistol with his 
watch, or, in the expressive slang of the frontier, 
he may be blighted by lead fever before sun- 
down. 

Outlaws from Mexico and Texas haunt the 
mountain springs and prowl about the caiions 
of the territories ; and, in dread of them, hunters 
go in parties, and look well to their arms when 
they enter narrow defiles or a dark, lonesome 
gulch. 

These vagabonds subsist on the fat of the land, 



82 The Land of the Pueblos. 

where the country is most sparsely settled, and 
are the only buyers who have credit and are not 
crowded for payment by the Israelties who con- 
trol the dry goods business of the territory. The 
ranchero never refuses them milk, eggs, or mut- 
ton ; and the dark-eyed Mexican girl serves them 
with diligence, under promise of payment when 
they come again. Given a voice in the matter, 
this is not such a character as we like to encount- 
er on an empty plain, even in broad daylight ; 
and, as he neared us, the ladies involuntarily drew 
close together and scanned him thoroughl)'. 

A powerful fellow, of giant frame and danger- 
ous muscle, and, though unarmed, a foe to dread 
in any fight. He wore a shoddy coat, probably 
bought on compulsory credit of the Wandering 
Jew of Tularosa ; buckskin pants, with fringed 
side-stripes of Indian work, tucked inside of heavy 
cavalry boots, ponderous brass spurs jingling as 
he walked ; a red cotton handkerchief knotted 
around his throat. An imimense slouched som- 
brero — in the style of the Mexican caballero — 
drab, with a rosette and cord of red and tinsel, 
covered his forehead and shaded eyes that were 
restless and penetrating like a blackbird's. A 
shaggy, unshorn mane, reddened with dust and 
sunburn, fell over the buffalo neck and shoulders ; 
matted beard, a very jungle, reached almost to the 
cartridge-belt, and, blown aside by the wind, 
revealed the outline of revolvers in his breast- 
pockets. He carried a Winchester rifle easily as 
a gentleman carries his cane ; a leather belt, 
buckled around his waist, was filled with cart- 
ridges, and bore a murderous-looking knife in its 
sheath. 

When this shape, of aspect threatening and 
sinister, came within friendly hail, we bowed with 
much suavity. 

" Texas Jack ! Buenos diasT said Juan Fresco, 



To the Tzirqucis Mines. 83 

who well became his name ; and serene as sum- 
mer, he shifted the reins and laid his hand on the 
navaja. 

The frontiersman touched his hat-brim with his 
big forefinger, sunburnt to a vermillion red, 
quietly passed on toward the Galisteo, and we 
saw him no more. When fairly out of sight of 
the outlaw, we felt brave as lions. 

'' A prospector," said one, mildly. 

" Yes, and never without a prospect," said the 
antiquarian, bringing out an old witticism. 

" A black sheep A\ithout any white spots," 
added another. "■ They always bring up on the 
frontier." 

And, very hilarious under the sense of relief, 
we courageously debated what we would have 
done had the robber attempted robbery and 
ordered us to hold up our hands. The men of 
the p^n would have been mere boys in the grip 
of this son of th^ border ; and we cheered our- 
selves with telling tales of how *' just such men " 
had gone out without pistols to seek their for- 
tunes, and had never been heard of afterward. 

The weakest of weeklies is dull and insipid 
compared with the daily experiences recounted 
in New Mexico ; and restless souls who hate 
tram nels, who love danger for its own sake, and 
hive looked death in the face till they cease to 
fear it, find a special charm in the wild " game 
flivor" of the frontier. 

The borderer who crossed our path .was the 
sort of soldier who in March, 1862, under the 
rebel General Sibley, came up from Texas, forded 
the Rio Grande at a point below Fort Craig, 
fought the Union troops under Gen. Canby at 
Valverde, and again at Canon Glorietta, fifteen 
miles from Santa Fe. In that narrow pass, where 
flanking Wcis out of the question, a severe fight 
between infantry and artillery occured, in which 



84 The Land of the Pueblos. 

the rebels were victorious, and Sibley entered 
the capital city without meeting further resis- 
tance. 

His Texan Rangers, like Texas Jack, were 
half savage ; a desperate set, having no higher mo- 
tive than plunder and adventure. Each one was 
mounted (^\\ a mustang horse, and carried a rifle, 
a tomahawk, a bowie-knife, a pair of Colt's revol- 
vers, and a lasso for catching and throwing the 
horses of a flying enemy. Not valuing their 
own lives at a pin's fee, they gave no quarter and 
expected none. 

About eleven o'clock the breeze dropped and 
the sun came up with a dry, sultry scorch, like 
flame. Our spirits flagged, the stories ended, 
laughter and song died away ; nor could we rouse 
to the least interest in a herdsman's ranche — a 
mud-built hive, swarming with Mexican drones. 

" What a weary land ! " said Thalia. 

" All lands are weary for women," said her 
elder sister ; and for a time nothing v/as heard 
but the harsh grinding of wheels in the gravelly 
sand. 

In such emptiness it was a stirring event to be 
overtaken by a Pueblo Indian, who passed us 
with a swinging stride, rarely seen off the boards 
of a country theatre. This 

" Wild warrior of the Turquois Hills " 

is tame enough now. Always a tiller of the soil, 
he is the original, in fact, the aboriginal granger. 
A picturesque figure, in a handsome striped 
blanket, with red girth around his waist and a 
crown of green leaves, like the classic fillet, shad- 
ing his forehead. We were fortunate, too, in seeing 
a half-grown boy chase jack-rabbits with a curved 
stick, hurling it with whirring sound, in the style 
of the boomerang, till lately thought exclusively 
Australian. The stripling appeared like the 



To the Turquois Mines, 85 

bird-hunter of the Nile, carv^ed in basso relievo on 
the oldest tomb at Thebes. Weapon and attitude 
of the Egyptian are precisely the same as those 
of the boyish red hunter of North America. 

The more we learn of Eve's family, the surer 
the proofs of a common parentage. Guided by 
the same instinct, the tools of various nations, 
unknown to each other, are the same and the 
measure of their advancement ; showing how 
little depends on accident, and how closely they 
are connected with the organism, and, therefore, 
with the necessities of man. So striking is the 
parallel between aborigines in every continent 
that with difficulty do we divest ourselves 
o{ the idea that there must have been some direct 
intercommunication. 

A band of tender green, restful to the sight, 
follows the course of a poor, tired, sluggish 
stream, sixteen miles from Santa Fe ; and a mile 
or two down its soundless current we described a 
group of cotton-wood trees — an oasis, indeed — 
shading alow adobe house. The green leaves in 
restless flutter and the brook gave the spot an 
appearance of home not often found in the square 
of brown mud wall which makes the Mexican 
domicile. 

Along the margin of the nameless stream is a 
border of alkali, sprinkled in patches like salt 
over the ground. Of course, we were struck with 
thirst at sight of running water ; but prudenth' con- 
tented ourselves with that in our canteens, rather 
thai risk drinking alkali, which abounds \\\ New 
Mexico, so strong in some streams that fish can- 
not live in them. In many places the ranchero 
digs, to find only a mocking fluid, deadly alike 
to man, beast, and vegetation. And we compre- 
hend the Arabian saying : " The water provider 
is always blest, being daily remembered in the 
prayers of the faithful." 



86 The Land of the Pueblos. 

Our road was an easy descent all the way, the 
Cerillos being nearly 3,000 feet lower than Santa 
Fe. The founder of the antique city (Don An- 
tonio de Espego) described this country with 
Spanish exuberance, in a letter to Philip Second : 
** The earth is filled with gold, silver, and tur- 
quoises.'^ And the gallant adventurer threw 
such glowing light upon it, the king at once sent 
a thousand men to colonize and possess the pro- 
vince. 

As we quietly journeyed along, I pondered on 
the very moderate basis the heroic Cavaliers, 
those old Spanish filibusters, had for the brilliant 
reports sent back to Spain. Leaving the ambu- 
lance within a mile of the mines, we toiled wearily 
along the mountains, well named the Rocky. 
Their surface is strewn with fragments, broken as 
if chipped with hammers — a ragged pavement, 
which bruised our feet, tore our shoes, and wore 
out our patience ; and when at last we reached 
the first mine, we thought it but a continuation 
of Los Cerillos, The most ancient is much the 
largest, and to this we directed our steps. Under 
the dizzy crags which overhang it is a sheltered 
recess, blackened with smoke and bedded with 
ashes made by camp-fires of Indians, who still 
frequent the spot, in search of the precious chal- 
chuite. With difficulty we reached this cave, and, 
leaning over the edge, looked down and saw, not 
a narrow, black shaft, but half a mountain cut 
away. Undoubtedly, the mineral lay here which, 
through countless generations, furnished the 
Indian kings with their most valued ornaments. 
The yawning pit is two hundred feet deep and 
more than three hundred in diameter. Probably 
the work of aborigines before De Soto's requiem 
mingled with the voice of the rushing waters of 
his burial place ; when Columbus had seen the 
New World only in that vision of the night, 



To the TtirqiiGis ]\I:nes. 87 

v.here the unknown voice whispered : *' God will 
cause thy name to be wonderfully resounded 
through the earth, and will give thee the keys of 
the gates of the Ocean, A\hich are closed with 
strong chains." On the walls of the great exca- 
vation Nature has gently, patiently done what 
she could to smooth the rugged crags, and has 
thrown out of their fissures a scant growth of 
shrubs, and trailed a scarlet blossom here and 
there on a thread-like stem. At the bottom, on 
stones crumbling with age, stained and weather- 
worn, are dwarf pines, the growth of the centur- 
ies. In this close amphitheatre there is no breeze 
to stir their tops, and their motionless foliage, 
with its somber shadows, adds to the ever-pres- 
ent mountain-gloom. 

Thousands of tons of rock have been crushed 
from the solid mass, and thrown up in such a high 
heap it seems another mountain, overgrown with 
old pines and dry gray mosses. On a few frag- 
ments we noticed the turquois stain — "indica- 
tion " of valuable mineral. When we consider 
that all this digging, hewing, and hacking were 
done by hand labor alone, without knowledge of 
domestic animals, iron, or gunpowder, the debris 
carried away in sacks of skins, the enormity of 
the work is the more impressive. The tradition 
is that the chalcJiiiite mines, through immemoric I 
ages known to the primitive race, were possessed 
by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. In- 
dian slaves then worked them, under the lash of 
the conqueror, until 1680, when, by accident, a 
pDrtion of the rock from which we had our first 
view fell, and killed thirty Pueblos. The Span- 
iards immediately made a requisition on the town 
of San Marcos for mo#e natives to take their 
places ; when, with a general uprising, they drove 
the hated oppressor from the country as far 
south as El Paso del Norte. I give the tale for 



88 The Land of the Pueblos, 

what it is worth. Mining atmospheres are ihe 
favorite haunts of fable, and a spice of truth is 
enough to flavor whole volumes of stories, charm- 
ing but delusive. An airy legend hovers about 
Santa Fe that two stones from " Z^ Canada de 
las Minas'' — '' Glen of Mines" — are still among 
the crown jewels of Arragon. But chalchintcs 
were valueless after being once submitted to the 
jewelers of Spain ; and the sparkling story, like 
many another told by the camp-fire, loses its 
original brightness when removed to the search- 
ing light of the student's lamp. 

Careful analysis shows the constituents of the 
chalchuites are nearly the same as those of the 
Persian turquoises, and their f-^rmation the result 
of infiltration. Sometimes they are v/ashed up 
by heavy rains ; but usually are discovered by 
digging in the sandstone or are broken out from 
the body of the rock. 

Not being disposed to dig, we retraced our 
path, and climbed around to the top of the shelv- 
ing crag above us, and looked over the plateau. 
Eastwardly it stretches toward Santa Fe, beyond 
which the stony mountains lift their high heads. 
On the southwest it opens toward the Rio Grande 
in a measureless vista, where earth and sky appear 
to meet. A plain, oppressive in its vastncss, 
lying in the midst of a stone wilderness, its 
sameness relieved by the solitary peaks, Sandia 
and Albuquerque. In every direction stand 
mountains grim and fixed as walls of adamant, 
apparently immovable as the throne of God. 
Low in the horizon one feathery cloud hung 
moveless in a sapphire sky. The world seemed 
stricken dead. No verdure to cool the parched 
grass ; no water, " the ^eye of the earth " glanc- 
ing up toward heaven ; no waving branches, 
beckoning like friendly hands to cool shade and 
shelter : no wagon-road or foot-path to mark the 



To the Ttirquois Mines. 89* 

track of men ; not a sound to break a stillness- 
which is not the hush of profound peace, but the 
everlasting silence of death. 

Save the one shining spot of gauzy vapor, the 
blue above was without a blur. The sun was at 
meridian, and in its hard glitter the scorched 
summits looked like they were at white heat. 
The sea is lonely ; but it has shifting color, 
sound, and motion. The silence of the land is 
deeper. If there had been the note of a bird, 
the hum of bees, even a grasshopper's chirp, it 
had been a relief; but in the far-reaching desola- 
tion I alone drew breath. All else was still as 
the breast when the spirit has fled. 

The influence was benumbing to the senses, 
and as I stood in infinite solitude, a stone among 
stones, there came over me the feeling that this 
melancholy waste is the skeleton of our Mother 
Earth ; that the dust of which all flesh is made 
has been blown away, scattered to the four winds 
of heaven, leaving these gray old bones forlorn 
and unburied through the long, slow centuries,, 
till the coming of the Great Day for which all 
other days were made. 

The voices below were too remote for my 
hearing, and (how absurd it now appears) it was 
"company "to spy a speckled chameleon, sun- 
ning himself on a rock ; and, as he quickly slipped 
between its cracks and vanished, I was left the 
more alone. Listening to silence, as it were, 
there swept across my memory the words of the 
hymn familiar in childhood as the dear face which 
bent above my cradle : 

" O'er all these wide-extended plains 
Shines one eternal day." 

If the singer had ever faced the blinding glare 
of high noon on the wide-extended plains of the 
Rocky Mountains, he would have tuned his harp 
anew, and hymned the rivers of waters in a dry- 



'9© The Land cf the Pueblos. 

place, the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land. 

1 soon sought that refuge from the desert 
scorch, and, snatching at shrubs to keep from slip- 
ping, scrambled down the mountain by a dizzy, 
winding way, the loosened stones rolling after me 
to the bottom of the mine. How pleasant the 
smoke of the camp-fire ! Its leaping flame and 
•crackle were a welcome back to life again. And 
never till then did I know how much sweeter than 
harp or horn the sound of human voices can be. 

Long before I joined my companions I had 
heard shouts of exultation, and, wondering what 
prospector had '* struck it," I learned that a piece 
of chaldiuite had been brought out of the lining 
of a seam where it had lain under the roots of a 
-stunted shrub, in appearance not unlike spice- 
wood. It was near an inch in length, by half an 
inch in thickness ; a large and lovely specimen, 
the color sea-green, delicately shaded into blue — 
the latter the result of decomposition, so the 
scientist said. 

The owner of this " regular bonanza " was our 
driver. He made no effort to conceal his delight ; 
and with reason, for it was a rare piece of min- 
-eral, and he a lucky miner to obtain it with so 
little trouble, or even to get it at all. Such a 
stone the gentle and gracious Montezuma might 
have worn in his signet-ring or set in the clasp 
of his green mantle of feather-work. Such a gift 
would have made still brighter the bright eyes of 
his daughter, the laughing Princess Nenetzin, the 
spoiled darling, whose death was the crowning 
horror of the Noche Triste. 

I had sniffed coffee from afar, and now we 
were ready to pass the cup that not inebriates, 
sung by the temperate Cowper. Our cloth was 
laid on a table-rock, the feast was spread, we ate, 
drank, and were merry. The dumb spell of the 



To the Turquois Mines. 91 

desert snapt, only the peace of the perpetual hills- 
remained. Resting in the fragrant shade of the 
pines, we talked of Montezuma, the saddest^ 
proudest chief of Indian history, whose name is 
still a majestic memory among the degraded,, 
broken-hearted Pueblos. 

Beautiful beliefs they cherish regarding him — 
the peculiar friend of the red race, shadowy above 
all things, yet real above all things, who dwelt 
among them as a god, yet a familiar friend. He 
was the brother and equal of the Unseen One 
whose name it is death to utter ; and the chiefs 
still watch for him at sunrise beside the sacred 
fire in the estiifa, claiming his promise to come 
again from his throne in the sun, and bring back 
the faded glories of his fallen people. All their 
traditions point to the second advent of their 
beloved prophet, priest, and king, who disap- 
peared from the earth when it was young, and 
who will not fail, in the fullness of time, to redeem 
the promise made to his red children. 

The ground was strewn with fragments of 
broken pottery, the unfailing sign of the ancient 
Pueblo, the rightful owner of this soil. They 
were colored maroon red, light clay, and dark 
brown, with markings of black. At sight of them 
the antiquarian fell to wandering among tombs, 
discoursing on fallen kingdoms, extinct races, 
wrecks of empire, and columns voiceless as the 
gray stones of Paestum. He was learned and 
eloquent; but none of these things move me. 
Our little scraps were but the elder and better 
counterparts of the poor potteries the Pueblos 
make at this day ; and merely prove, what I 
believe has never been disputed, that North 
America has been inhabited from a remote period. 
I know there are enthusiasts who insist there was 
a prehistoric race, displaced by what we call 
aborigines, which had a civilization comparing^ 



92 The Land of the Pueblos. 

favorably with those of the Old World. What 
that civilization was, let the stone hatchet, and the 
dingy pottery with its graceless tracings testify, 
when laid beside relics from Eturia the Beautiful, 
The Western fragments are in beggarly contrast 
with the exquisite vases and jewel-work which 
are the model and despair of the modern artist. 

Several inferior bits of clialcJuiite were dug out 
of the ancient wastage ; but the color was faint, 
as if they had not lain long enough for a thorough 
dyeing. We added to our collection an arrow- 
head of jasper and one of obsidian, nicely flaked 
and pointed ; and gave a dollar for the largest 
Indian hatchet I have ever seen, brought up b}" 
the enterprising Juan Fresco from an abandoned 
silv^er mine hard by. It was roughened and 
"time-worn, and had lain there how long — ah [ 
Qiden sabef 

It may interest some believer in the perishing 
theory of " Ages" to know the Stone Age is not 
•ended in New Mexico. Within the present gen- 
eration, it is said, remote tribes have used as a 
weapon, offensive and defensive, the stone 
hatchet, tied by a thong of deerskin to a wooden 
handle. As Sir John Herschel said of something 
else, this is one of those things which, according 
to received theories, ought not to happen. 

We lingered under the solemn pines, groping 
with shadows, visible and unseen, loth to leave. 
The hoary hills, so lone and untrodden, began to 
be possessed of strange enchantment. The place 
was ours by right of discovery. We were a band 
of explorers, the first to break a silence lasting 
•since the morning stars sang at creation's dawn. 
Perhaps the witchery was a variation of the preva- 
lent miner's fever, for the day was waning when 
we reluctantly gave over our search for precious 
mineral. 

In the shining of the loveliest afterglow this side 



To the Turqiiois Mines, Ccntiniied. 93 

of Heaven, we sought the wagon, standing in the 
level expanse, like a ship at anchor. A freshen- 
ing breeze blew cheerily, and, turning back as we 
drove away, we watched the swift-coming Night 
gather the mountains tenderly, one by one, into 
her bosom, and touch their scarred, stern faces 
with ineffable beauty. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TO THE TURQUOTS MINES. 

{CGntinued.) 

North of the Placer Ridges and divided from 
them by the intervening valley of the Galisteo, 
are bold bluffs of trap, the cut edges of a plateau 
forming a vicsa, from which rise the volcanic 
cones of Los Cerillos. From these hills rushed 
the fiery lava-flovv^ widespread over the country, 
giving it a worn-out look, desert-like and depres- 
sing to the last degree. Geologists assert that, at 
a very recent period in the world's changes, fire, 
ice, and water have, with tremendous subter- 
ranean forces, left here marks of a storm more 
terrible than our conceptions of the Deluge. The 
hot springs, now slowly dying out, are the last 
of the series of events once performed on 
a scale which almost baffles human concep- 
tion. The faint departing remnants of once 
terrific forces point to something which must be 
described by a broader word than earthquake — a 
fiery convulsion, that altered the whole face of 
the country, if we may judge by the marks the 
jstorm has left. 

In order to avoid a rocky unheaval, thrown out 
by the expiring energies of the volcanic epoch, 
not yet closed, we started back to Santa Fe by a 
circuitous route, and soon came on signs of a 



94 'J^he Land of the Pueblos. 

camp — heaps of white ashes, circled by burnt 
and blackened ends of pinon chips. The vega 
is sere and parched as the plains of Arabia, and 
in dreamy mood we could easily fancy the last 
tent of the Moslem had just been struck, the 
heavy standard folded by slim figures in sweep- 
ing burnous; and we glanced along the horizon 
for a gleam of slender spears, and the long cara- 
van, made spectral by distance, slowly vanishing 
into the mystic silence of the desert. 

Involuntarily we looked for valuables dropped 
by Haroun and Mohammed, as they untethered 
the camels and packed the hampers ; scattered 
spices ; a jeweled cup of gold, with the lump of 
ambergris at the bottom; a white turban; a 
shawl of price. 

No such thing. 

There lay on the ground, instead, a battered 
sardine-box, a sliver of wagon-tongue, the broken 
end of a saw (pocketed by Juan Fresco), four 
greasy cards (also appropriated by Cool John), 
two used-up paper collars, and an empty black 
bottle. Strong testimonials to the high superior- 
ity of our arts, and the refinements of our boasted 
civilization. 

A little way from the road, fastened to a 
scrubby piiion tree, was a fluttering white signal ; 
and, thinking it might be a sign of distress, we 
stopped the wiUing mules, and all got out to see 
what was the matter. With the help of a match, 
we made out a rudely penciled hand on canvas 
of flour-bag, pointing in the direction of Los 
Cerillos, and below it read the bold legend, — 

"Sweet Home Saloon." 

Looking ahead, we hailed Sweet Home itself. 
A roofless pen of pine boughs, fencing in narrow 
shelves of black bottles, and a camp-stool — a 
dark puzzle made of mule-bones and cowhide, 



To the Turqiiois Mines, ConfinueiL 

pronounced a relic of the palaeozoic age by the 
geologist. The establishment was guarded by a 
wolfish dog, which the bravest of us did not care 
to examine ; so we hurried back to the ambu- 
lance, regardless of prickly pear, and in the 
valley's edge passed the white tents of the van- 
guard of civilization — an army of laborers, work- 
ing day and night on the railroad track. They 
will not march till they have broken the fascinat- 
ing spell, the poetic glamor which the romantic 
Espego threw over Nueva Espagna three hundred 
years ago, and which has rested on it like an 
alluring mystery ever since. If you would dream 
dreams and see visions, now is the time to come. 
If you would taste the wild charm, hasten to 
catch it before the wear of every-day travel 
tramples out the primitive customs. It is still to 
a good degree a country apart from the rest of 
the United States ; mountain-locked and little 
knovv^n, severed, as it has been, from the great 
highways of commerce. Its history is a romance 
and a tragedy, and, as in every country imper- 
fectly explored, it holds more or less of the 
mysterious. Here are extensive ruins ; unpar- 
alleled natural phenomena; mountains, ''flaunting 
their crowns of snow everlastingly in the face of 
the sun," that bear in their bosom undeveloped 
mines, dazzling the imagination ; cafions with 
perpendicular sides a mile in height ; savages 
merciless and bloodthirsty, who in undying hate 
still dispute the progress of foreign civilization. 
But the civilizer is coming ; is here. The waste 
lands of the wandering tribes will be divided and 
sold by the acre, instead of the league. The 
dozing Mexican will be jostled on the elbow, and 
will w^ake from his long trance to find himself in 
the way. 

A procession of phantoms is flying along "-£/ 
Camino del few o carriV ; whispering voices are 



96 The Land of the Pneblos. 

drowned in the hiss of steam ; and the midnight 
hush of the black caiion is stirred by the whirr 
of beautiful wings, unheard save by ears attuned 
to finest harmonies. By the time this letter 
reaches the eyes so dear to the writer, there will 
be no haunted solitudes along Los Cerillos. The 
pick and shovels of Mike Brady and the O'Flan- 
negans will have put to flight the finer fancies of 
musing antiquary and dreaming pilgrim. You 
know certain boundaries mark the limit of every 
created thing, be it real or imaginary. 

Fairies never trip it on pavements. They are 
too delicate for such footing. Ghosts haunt only 
houses where men have lived and died ; and the 
epic of history cannot abide the screech of the 
locomotive nor its penetrating headlight. It 
requires broken, disconnected threads, doubtful 
testimony, dim lights — above all, the mist}- lines 
of distance The locomotive brings the ends of 
the earth together, and dashes into nothingness 
delicate tissues woven in darkness, like certain 
delicate laces, whose threads break in the weaving 
by day. 

And here is something brought by the loco- 
motive. 

In the luminous haze of the paling twilight 
appeared a peddler, lying beside his pack, shel- 
tered by a rock, under which he had crept, which 
looked as though it might fall any moment and 
crush him to atoms. On nearer view, we discov- 
ered, instead of peddler and pack, the pioneer 
organ grinder, the first to set foot in New Mexico. 
His shoes were ragged and travel-worn. He wore 
a cast-off uniform of army blue, and a red hand- 
kerchief knotted round his throat. Sun-scorched 
gray hair straggled round the edge of his black 
skull-cap, and mingled with the dust of the 
ground. Overcome by heat and fatigue, he was 
dead asleep, one hand resting on the rusty green 



To the Tii7'q2iois Mijies, Co?ifmued. 97 

curtain which draped the organ, the other hold- 
ing the neck of a httle brown dog, about the size 
of a pinch of snuff, curled up in his bosom. In 
the emptiness of the desert every peaceful thing 
is welcome. We stopped, as a matter of course. 

" A bad place for a tramp, unless he can eat 
rock and drink mirage," said our polyglott anti- 
quary, as he jumped from the ambulance. He 
shook the sleeper gently, and addressed him in 
Italian. The man slowly rose to his feet. " Ah ! 
excellenza," said he, in the spoken music of 
Southern Italy, '' your voice is like the sound of 
fountains in the ear of the thirsty. Tell me, is 
there no water in this land ?" 

*'I^one within six miles; but we have a can- 
teen left, which you may have," and the kindly 
antiquary produced the dirty frontier flask, sewed 
up in flannel, to keep its contents cool — which it 
never does. 

The musician unscrewed the lid, and took a 
long draught. 

** It is better than wine," he said, " for Victor 
can drink it too," and he poured the precious 
liquid in a tin cup. The little brute, who was pretty 
much all tail, gave a friendly bark, and wagged 
himself almost to pieces as he slaked his thirst. 

" Where are you going? " we asked. 

" To Albuquerque, to Bernalillo, to Las Lunas " 
— and he named the various towns and stations 
on the route to Old Mexico. 

'' The country is overrun by Apaches — 
Indians who will torture you and then kill you." 

"■ The banditti will not hurt," said the old man, 
simply, *' when I give them this." 

He lifted the box to its one leg, raised the cur- 
tain, turned the crank ; a warning click, and lo ! 
" Hear me, Norma." How strangely the familiar 
air sounded across that plain, so wide, so dim, so 
still ! Through a floating mist, not of the earth 
7 



98 The Land of the Pueblos. 

or of the sky, I saw, not the wanderer and his 
wretched instrument, but a radiant vision of gHt- 
tering Kghts, the brilliant crowd in the horseshoe 
curve, hanging breathless on the voice of the 
divine singer, now leading the starry choir of 
Heaven. 

Surely, there is not another place in the world 
where a party of sensible people would fool away 
an hour on an organ-grinder. Every well-regu- 
lated mind (and I address no other) will perceive 
the absurdity. But it was so long since we had 
heard one, he was such a delightful reminder of 
bright days and brighter nights, that over and 
over again we made the drowsy player drone his 
dull tunes. They brought us serene and golden 
Italy, the racing shadows and glancing sumbeams 
of the far Campania ; and, best of all, the love- 
songs of home — that sweet spot, toward which I 
look as the first woman, exiled forever, must 
have looked toward the barred gates of lost 
Paradise. 

When the wheezy machine rested, we gave the 
player a small (very small) fortune in loose 
change and the remnants of our lunch. He had 
only a cracker and two onions in his wallet, and 
the wayfarer would have knelt for gratitude, had 
we allowed it, while he rained blessings on our 
heads, in the name of the Queen of Heaven, the 
saints, and all the angels. 

" Where do you camp? " asked the antiquary, 
when the benediction slacked. 

"Wherever the night finds me. I have a 
blanket, Victor is company, and the sky is my 
tent." 

There was infinite pathos in the words and his 
glance up to the arch overhead. The flash of 
hero's armor in the changeful curtains of the 
glorious tent warned us to go on ; but we were 
slow to leave the stranger, and would have taken 



To the Turqucis Mines, Continued. 99 

him with us, but the ambulance was already 
ov^er-loaded. 

He stood bareheaded long as we were in sight, 
lazily grinding " The Last Rose of Summer," as 
though he was falling asleep. Faint and clear 
the music drifted after us, by distance mellowed 
into sweetness. Miles away, now lost in the 
valley, now low on the hills, floated 

'•Tufts of tune like thistle-down," 

wafted along by the soft night-breeze. When 
the last wandering note died away we took up 
the refrain "■ Oh ! who would inhabit this cold 
world alone ? " and, looking at the sentinel stars, 
thought pityingly of the exile, alone in his tent 
— a mighty pavilion of royal purple, which deep- 
ening shadows widened into a solitude vast as 
eternity, mysterious as death. 

The singing was very soft, for Thalia was cry- 
ing, as we discovered by tiny sniffs muffled 
behind her hankerchief, and you know how con- 
tagious home-sickness is, and the sweeping gloom 
was oppressive even with the best company. 
The cheerful day, with all its trailing splendors, 
was dead ; the fine gold of sunset became dross. 
A pale, white shining in the east announced the 
rising moon, and in its mystic glow the moun- 
tains put on spectral shapes and journeyed with 
us. A solemn stillness filled the night and rested 
on the party which had set out so gayly in the 
morning. One by one the voices hushed, and 
silence followed, so intense it was almost painful. 

We will anticipate, as our friends the novelists 
say, and follow the march of the minstrel — one 
of the last of the gentle race of troubadours. 
We heard of his safe arrival at Albuquerque and 
at Bernalillo. Two days' journey southward, the 
mail-boy reported having seen him, moving in a 
dazed, bewildered way, mourning for the little 



loo The Land of the Pueblos. 

doggie, which was missing. '* There are no 
sausage factories here," said our informant, with 
a smile of ghastly significance. "■ But a big 
Mexican dog could swallow that pup like a pill." 

A lively letter from a friend in Silver City re- 
corded his passage through the lower country. 
The Pueblo Indians gave him of their poor sub- 
stance, and made him at home in their mud 
hovels, regarding him as a great medicine-man, 
with a magic box. In their childish curiosity, 
they wanted to chop open the cage and see the 
singing-birds inside. At a little village, whose 
name I do not now recall, the whole population 
flocked round the itinerant. He was a choice 
item for the local editor of the Pharos of the 
Occident, a miner living on imagination, who 
fancied himself a brilliant writer and financier, 
and in a lurid editorial he hailed the musician as 
the forerunner of Thomas and Mapleson, and 
hinted it was high time to form a stock company 
for the purpose of building an adobe opera- 
house. Everywhere the player was well receiv- 
ed, till he reached Socorro. On the edge of the 
Jornado, from immemorial ages overrun by the 
Apache, the Western Bedouin, every trace of him 
was lost. 

The tameless warriors of Victorio's band are 
deaf to " Hear me, T^orma," and I greatly fear 
the gray scalp of the minstrel is a trophy in the 
belt of the red chief, and that his poor old bones 
lie unburied in the treeless, waterless, wind-swept 
desert, truly named, by the first Spaniard who 
dared its perils, Jornada del Muerto — Journey of 
Death. 



CHAPTER IX. 

TO THE TURQUOIS MINES, 

(Continued.) 

At evening the gentle shepherd of New 
Mexico leads his flock from high pastures, 
where the precipitation of moisture is greatest 
and, therefore, grass is freshest, to the fold, 
or corral, in the valley. It is precisely the 
pattern of fold abounding in Palestine and still 
to be seen on the outskirts of Alexandria — an 
enclosure made by crooked stakes driven in the 
ground, poorly held together by strips of raw- 
hide. No two are of the same length. All 
were twisted and gnarled in the growing, and 
lean out of the perpendicular. A shabby fence, 
uglier than everything except a mud fence, which 
the reader knows is the superlative ugliness. By 
the light of the moon we noted the fashion of 
the shepherd's Cain-and-Abel suit of goatskin ; 
and, instead of the classic crook, wreathed with 
garlands gathered in flowery meadows, the Rocky 
Mountain Endymion guarded his flock with a 
shotgun and bowie-knife, less fearful of the wolf 
than of his own thieving countrymen. 

We observe another Asian custom here, that 
of sleeping on the roofs in summer. The heavenly 
nights invite one out, and the flat housetop is a 
much pleasanter place to make one's bed than 
the cellar-like interior, with its earthly scents. 
The sluggard Mexican, who has killed the long 
hours of the common enemy by dozing in the 
sun, rouses toward sunset and spreads out the 
colchon, or wool mattress, if they are very poor, 
or a bed of skins. The stairway is a rickety 
ladder, leaning against the outer wall of the mud 
house, and the rapidity and ease with which the 

lOI 



I02 The Land of the Pueblos, 

natives go up and down is surprising. I have 
s>^t.\\. women carry jars of water on their head, 
not spilHng a drop, as they ascend the ladder, 
touching it only with their feet. The old people — 
mummies of the time of Cheops — go to bed at 
sunset ; a little later the children and chickens 
hop up the loose rounds ; then the lord of the 
estate, and his dusky spouse, with her cat ; and 
lastly the ratty dogs, moving nimbly, as the 
trained ones of the circus. Haul up the ladder, 
and the castle is secure. There is no fear of 
rain. There is no dew, no fog or mist, to blur 
the clear shining of the stars above. The low 
wind is the very breath of heaven ; the bright 
night is filled with sleep. 

So slept the Saviour of the world on the 
housetop of Lazarus, at Bethany, whither he 
had walked in the cool of the day. Looking 
from that lowly bed toward the many mansions 
of his Father's house, well might the homeless 
guest utter the pathetic cry : " The foxes have 
holes and the birds of the air have ncste ; but 
the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." 

Near the City of the Pueblos, within sight of 
the graceful spire of the Sisters' Chapel, was a 
coyote tearing a stray lamb to pieces. We had 
met the ninety-and-nine an hour before, return- 
ing to the fold from the river. The wild, tame- 
less creature there was in perfect keeping with 
the continued newness of a country where white 
men have lived nearly three centuries. He 
started, looked fearlessly out of the sage-bush, 
and the clear moonlight outlined the true wolf's 
head, with its fox-like muzzle and sharp, forward- 
pointed ears. He glared at us a moment, and 
then quietly and leisurely stalked away, amid a 
general lament that we had neither gun nor pistol 
at hand. The beast was of the " ^sop's Fable " 
breed — a large, handsome fellow, whose pictorial 
pelt would have made an elegant foot-rug. 



To the Turquois Mines, Ccntinued. 103 

Let me not close without telling what became 
of the " regular bonanza." The day after our 
return to Santa Fe, the many-named Mexican 
called, bringing his fine cJialchiiite. He explained, 
with impressive gesture and rhetorical flourish, he 
was too poor to own so rich a jewel, fit for the 
king's son, and would sell it, if la Senora would 
pay him — naming the price. At first I was 
appalled at the magnitude of the sum ; but the 
stone of inimitable hue, lying in the lean, brown 
hand, had a sort of magnetism. The familiar 
tint was charming, matching as it did a tiny ring 
long worn for remembrance, and with much 
cracked Spanish and broken English, a bargain 
Avas made, and we parted, with many a cordial 
adios. No, not even in the close confidence of 
print will I tell you, beloved, the price of the 
princely jewel. The secret will go v/ith me to 
the grave. Enough that it was exhaustive. I 
am blushing over it yet. 

The following week I heard a low whisper that 
Juan Fresco did not find the turquois at Los 
Ccrillos ; but got it in a trade with a wild savage, 
ignorant of its worth. A Navajo, allowed to 
leave the Reservation, under protection of a pass, 
and pay a stealthy visit to his own hunting- 
grounds, had let it go for four yards of red flan- 
nel. Cool John had slyly arranged the whole 
affair, and whisked the stone out of his sleeve in 
the very nick of time. Fortune turned his head, 
as she has many a stronger one. He retired from 
the box, and set up a saloon, the " San Francisco," 
under a bower of cedar boughs, in the near 
mining camp. Being of a convivial turn, in 
spite of mournful eyes and voice, at last accounts, 
Juan Fresco was his own best customer at the 
bar. 

However, I had my costly prize, and in the 
seclusion of my own room gloated over it, and fear- 



I04 The La7id of the Pueblos. 

ful of burglars, hid it at night under the edge of the 
carpet behind the bureau. After much dehbera- 
tion regarding the shape in which it would best 
appear, I sent the cJialchidte to the leading jewel- 
er of New York. Too precious for the mail, it 
went express, and I carefully held a receipt 
for its full value. In good time the little lavender- 
box returned by mail. I untied the string with 
nervous haste and lo ! my pattern locket 
lapped in red cotton, and the " regular bonanza." 

A brief note explained Messrs. B. & B's '* regret 
to state the sample of turquois will not endure 
polish or cutting. The color is a mere surface 
stain on gneiss, and easily scales off, exposing 
the brown stone, as you may readily discover by 
trying it with your scissors-point. We have re- 
ceived several such specimens from New Mexico. 
They have no commercial value. This has none 
whatev^er, except to its owner." 

Then I felt like the tender poet who sends off 
a song that is his heart's delight, and receives 
next week a very precious letter, in familiar 
handwriting, accompanied by a printed circular, 
bearing the awful words," Declined, with thanks.'* 



Yesterday I examined a collection of relics — 
not exquisitely beautiful, but exquisitely old 
— from various points along the valleys of the 
San Pedro, the Gila, and the Rio Grande. They 
were mainly broken potteries, a few sacred 
whispering-stones from old estufas, rude arms of 
iztli, and the familiar flint arrows, such as have 
been discovered in every portion of the globe 
where there are graves of men. Among many 
trinkets offered, I chose a little looking-glass of 
iztli^ and an amulet of chalchuite from the ruins 
of a prehistoric city near El Paso. It was close 
to the Texas line, and within the limit of the 
mound-builders' region. I selected these trifles 



To the Turqiiois Mines, Cotttiniied. 105 

because they were feminine belongings, and 
brought me nearer than the pipes and hatchets 
could bring me to my dead and gone sisters. 
The mirror, about half the size of your hand, is 
made of iztli, or obsidian, an exceedingly hard, 
vitreous substance, plentiful in volcanic countries, 
of smoky tint, and capable of high polish. The 
art of working this intractable material is prac- 
tically lost in our times, but when wrought by the 
Indigene was useful as iron or tempered steel.* 

The amulet and twenty beads of cJialchuite 
were hidden in a black glazed jar, of the shape 
made by natives to-day, buried in a cave many 
feet below the surface of the ground. It was 
accidentally opened, in 1878, by a party of miners 
digging for silver. Probably a treasure-house, 
abandoned at the last moment, when the besieged 
inhabitants fled before a victorious army. Stone 
hammers were found near the cave, arrow-heads, 
hatchets, serrated swords of iztli, like the Aztecan, 
and half a human skull, evidently broken by a 
blow of the hatchet or tomahawk. 

The amulet is perhaps half an inch long, one- 
eighth of an inch thick — an irregular square, 
rudely carved and smoothed, probably by rub- 
bing with another stone. The veining on one 
side gives the semblance of a star. A hard tool 
and patient hand must have been required to 
drill a hole through this stubborn stone. The 
string which threaded it has gone to dust ; the 
hand which carved it and the race of which it is 
a faint trace are vanished into the voiceless past. 
Long lines of prostrate walls, miles of acequias^ 
or irrigating ditches, broken potteries, profusely 
scattered, indicate a dense population once held 
the valley near El Paso, and lived in cities con^ 

* It is said by Pliny to have been discovered first in Ethiopia, by 
a man named Obsidius. Hence the name. Gems and whole statues 
were made of it. He also speaks of four elephants of obsidian 
dedicated by Augustus in the Temple of Concord. 



lo6 The Land of tJie Pueblos, 

taining twenty thousand or thirty thousand souls. 
There is no reason to believe the modern inhab- 
itants of this country belong to a proud Hne, 
shorn of its ancient splendors. They have no 
sort of history, and among a people without 
written language, poetry, or music, tradition soon 
becomes confused. All their remains and three 
hundred years of continuous history show they 
have steadily declined in power and numbers ; 
but they are and have always been miserably 
poor. Their fabrics, arms, architecture are of the 
coarsest, most primitive description. 

The vessels of silver and of gold described by 
early explorers to a waiting and expectant world 
liave not been found in this or any other spot in 
New Mexico. They existed only in the fevered 
fancies of adventurers, blinded by their own im- 
aginings, drunk with their own conceits. If 
metals we count valuable were concealed in the 
ancient treasure-house, they are lost in the deep 
grave with the dead centuries. Only these trifling 
memorials have escaped the common doom. 

My amulet is a sorry love-token ; yet, for the 
sake of the soft meaning it once bore, I touch 
the trinket lightly. Rude in outline, utterly lack- 
ing in grace and luster, it represents a Western 
idyl. 

Young were the lovers, I knov/ (for love is 
ever young), and to eyes beloved each was beau- 
tiful and true. Perhaps she stood like Ruth 
among the corn, as the warm blood flushed his 
face, when he bound it with his love as a crown 
unto her, fastening it with vows, and promises, 
and never-ending kisses. Or did he set it as a 
seal upon her arm, making its pulses beat fast to 
•a new music, under the secret magic of its circle? 
Or was it hung on her neck, above the heart 
which fluttered like a caught bird at its touch, in 
the hour which comes but once in a Ufetime ? 



To the Turquois Mities, Continued. 107 

Ah, well you know, gentle reader, how she cher- 
ished the keepsake, and pondered it over when 
his face was not there, little dreaming how one 
of a race unheard of should, centuries afterward, 
dream over it too, and call back her spirit from 
out the unrecorded past, her gracious presence 
and tender words. 

All, all gone now. My young mound-build- 
ers — if mound-builders they were — sleep with the 
primeval giants. And, while a thousand wonder- 
ments hover about the poor keepsake, this only 
we do know : that they walked blindly along the 
path we call life ; slowly, and with many a failure,, 
worked out their destiny. They loved, sinned 
and suffered, died, and were forgotten. The sur- 
face of the country is altered since that old love- 
making. Strong cities are leveled with the 
plains, tribes are scattered, languages lost, whole 
races are extinct ; but humanity remains the 
same — the one thing that will outlast the world. 
These dead-and-gone tribes were not foreign to 
us. They were of our own blood, our elder 
brethren; and as their names and deeds are blot- 
ted out, leaving not a memory, so we are moving^ 
forward in the resistless march, holding in our 
hands messages appealing to futurity — messages 
addressed to darkness, dropped into oblivion. 

The relics from the Rio Grande were buried 
down deep. Perhaps my young lovers whispered 
the sweet words which made Eden Paradise, be~ 
fore the witching eyes of Marie Stuart turned the 
hearts of men ; before Cleopatra shone ; before 
Lucretia spun. The chalchinte m.ight lie in this 
rare, dry air till the crack of doom and suffer na 
change, as our old earth swings through the con- 
stellations, year by year. Possibly, its wearer 
was contemporaiy with the man of Natchez^ 
whose bones were exhumed not long ago, under 
the Mississippi bluffs, in strata said to prove him 
not less than one hundred thousand years old. 



io8 The Land of the Pueblos. 

If the story were told, we might not care to 
know what manner of man the bygone mound- 
builder was. His history must have been one of 
wars, and the struggles of the chiefs were trivial 
and petty to that of mighty Hector and Aga- 
memnon, if we accept the testimony of the re- 
mains which still exist. Let us believe we lost 
no grand epic in the Iliad of the lost race. 

The great historian wisely says : " The annals 
of mankind have never been written, can never 
be written, nor would it be within the limits of 
human capacity to read them, if they were writ- 
ten. We have a leaf or two torn from the great 
book of human fate, as it flutters in the storm- 
winds ever sweeping across the earth ; but we 
have no other light to guide us across the track 
which all must tread, save the long glimmering 
of yesterdays, which grows so swiftly fainter and 
fainter, as the present fades off into the past." 



CHAPTER X. 

AMONG THE ARCHIVES. — THINGS NEW AND OLD. 

North of El Palacio, is a waste spot of 
earth, covering perhaps half an acre. It contains 
neither grass, weeds, itor moss, not even a strag- 
gling sage-bush or forlorn cactus ; nothing but 
bare desert sand and a solitary cotton- wood tree, 
whose luxuriant leafage gives no sign of its 
struggle for life in a region waterless ten months 
of the year. High adobe w^alls bound the sterile 
enclosure on two sides ; the third is occupied by 
government buildings ; and the fourth is partly 
wall and partly abandoned offices, always locked 
and unused since the brave days when the Span- 
iards lorded it like princes in ^'The Palace." 



Ainoitg the Archives. — Thi?tgs New and Old. 109 

Ever a lover of lonesome places, I had often 
wistfully eyed these mysterious apartments ; and 
one day, being sadly in want of entertainment, 
hunted up the keys and sallied across the back 
yard, determined to explore the secret places. 
The first door I tried to open was m.ade of heavy 
double plank, studded with broad-headed nails. 
I fitted a key into the rough, old-fashioned lock, 
and, pushing with all my strength, it slowly 
sv/ung on rusty hinges, into a room, perhaps 
seventeen by twenty feet in size, barely high 
enough for a man to stand upright in. As I 
stepped on the loose pine boards of the floor, a 
swarm of mice scampered to their burrows in 
the walls, and the deathlike smell of mildew and 
decay smote the afflicted sense. Well for the 
chronicles is it there are no rats in the territory. 
Involuntarily I paused at the entrance, to let the 
ghosts fly out ; and several minutes passed before 
my eyes, accustomed to the darkness of this 
treasure-house, could see the shame of its 
neglect. 

I had entered the historic room of New Mex- 
ico ! Tumbled into barrels and boxes, tossed on 
the floor in moist piles, lay the written records 
of events stretching over a period of more than 
three hundred years, the archives of a Province 
known as Nueva Espagiia, large as PVance. In 
an atmosphere less dry than this they would 
have rotted ages ago. Nothing but the extreme 
purity of the air saved them from destruction. 

It was mid- winter, and melted snow slowly 
trickled through the primitive roofing of mud 
and gravel. The sun shone brightly, and, though 
days had passed since the last white spot disap- 
peared from the surface of the earth, still a 
hideous ooze filtered through the ashes and clay 
overhead, and dripped in inky streams down the 
pine rafters and walls. I am told the house was 



no The Land of the Pueblos. 

anciently used as a stable. If the first Spanish 
commandants and governor-generals kept their 
horses in this windowless cave, sony am I for 
the gallant steeds they professed to love next to 
their knightly honor and the ladies. 

The names of some of the Conqiicstadores 
have faded from history, and others live only in 
tradition. Nearly all the earlier important records 
have been destroyed. They accumulated rapidly 
in immense masses, and the heavy lumber was 
shifted from place to place by officials, to make 
room for things more valuable. Careless hands 
and the slow v/ear of time were not as effectual 
in blotting them out as a certain chief executive 
— a lineal descendant of Genseric, appointed 
by President of the United States — who made 
his administration memorable by building a bon- 
fire of parchments and papers, filled with price- 
less material, never to be replaced. He also sold 
a quantity as waste paper. By happy accident, 
a portion of this merchandise was afterward 
recovered, though one might think it as well 
employed in wrapping tea and sugar as going to 
decay in this neglected den. We grow indignant 
over the spirit which could not spare one reader 
of the picture-writing of the Aztecs or the qitip- 
pus of Peru. What shall we say of the man in 
authority who, in the best age of culture and 
research, abuses a trust like this, who deliber- 
ately fired whole wagon-loads of manuscripts of 
the deepest interest to the arch^ologist, the his- 
torian, and student. 

He had not even the excuse of the first Arch- 
bishop of Mexico, who burnt a mountain of manu- 
scripts in the market-place, stigmatizing them 
as magic scrolls ; and was more guilty than Car- 
dinal Ximines, who in the trial by fire alone 
could exercise the sorcery concealed in the Arabic 
manuscripts of Granada. 



Among the Archives. — Things New and Old. iii 

The delusions of fifteen hundred years are not 
easily put to flight, and there might be a drop of 
charity for the bigotry and intolerance of the 
Spaniard ; but the destroyer of history in New 
Mexico has no defense. I suppress his name. 
An archaeologist from New England is now busy 
among a heap of the sold documents, piled away 
in the back room of an old shop by a citizen of 
Santa Fe, who forsaw that they might one day 
be of interest, possibly of value. 

It was my pleasant work to help in overhauling 
the state papers, and the quiet hours of careful 
work were well rewarded. All sorts of papers 
were tossed together in the cavernous hole. I dug 
out quantities of printed matter of recent date, 
mixed with the old and weather-stained official 
documents, letters, copies of reports and dis- 
patches, marking political changes from 1580, 
when Santa Fe was founded by Don Antonio de 
Espego, to the year 1879. The province at first 
was ruled by military governors, appointed by 
the viceroys of Mexico, and communication with 
them and with Spain was so rare they reigned as 
despots, in haughty pride of place, and bitterly 
abused their power to kill, enslave, plunder, and 
subdue the heathen claimed for an inheritance. 

The first MS. opened bore the date 1620. It 
was illuminated with heavy seals and signed with 
strange, puzzling rubricas ; but the signature 
was completely effaced. It was part of a frozen 
chunk, tied with hempen cord, and peeled off a 
block wet through and through. The excellence 
of the parchment-like paper kept it from dissolv- 
ing into a lump of sticky pulp. 

Some papers were soaked so it was necessary 
to spread them on boards, to be dried in the sun, 
before being deposited in a place of safety. Rich 
treasure for the mining of the future historian. 
The eternal west wind fluttered mockingly among 



112 The Land of the Pueblos. 

crumpled leaves torn from the book of human 
fate, and a sudden gust whirled a yellow scrap 
high up in the branches of the cotton-wood tree. 
With the help of a Mexican boy, 1 rescued from 
ruin what proved a portion of the journal of 
Otervin, military commandant of Nueva Espagna, 
who undertook to reduce the Pueblos to subjection 
in 1681, and found them too many for him. 

Mixed with high heaps of worthless trash 
were worn and water-stained fragments, precious 
as the last leaves of the Sybil. These, pieced 
together, were smoothed with care and laid by 
for after reference. Poor, perishing records of 
ambitions baffled and hopes unfulfilled ; and, 
dreaming over the names of men who sought 
immortality on earth and now sleep forgotten, I 
deeply felt their teaching — the law that any last- 
ing condition is impossible in the hurrying march 
we call life, where nothing is constant but change, 
nothing certain but death. 

Through the lazy Mexican afternoons T groped 
along the musty annals with steady purpose, and 
in the shadowy history wandered JDack two cen- 
turies. Among the MSS. T lived in the days 
when William of Orange fought the grand battle 
which decided the fate of the Stuarts and estab- 
lished English dominion over the seas ; when the 
sun of Poland was sinking in endless night with 
the dying Sobieski, our patriot hero of early 
romance, whose name, consecrated by poetry and 
heroism, dwells in memory with Emmet and 
Kossuth ; when Madame de Maintenon, at the 
court of the king, who was worshipped as a demi- 
god, was writing long letters of the fatigues of 
court, and how she worried from morning till 
midnight, trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, 
and amuse the old tyrant, who was past being 
amused. Spain had been shaken by desperate 
wars, and out of armies nursed in victories came 



Among the Archives. — Things New and Old. 113 

a host of adventurers to the New World, where 
glory and fortune were reported as waiting for 
every newcomer. They were not colonists, 
emigrants, as with us, who had everything to 
gain and nothing to lose ; but men of the sword, 
used to command, who loved no music so well as 
trumpet and drum, the rattle and clang of arms. 
Reckless gamblers as Spaniards have been in all 
ages everywhere, they were ready to stake vast 
possessions on a venture in mines reported richer 
than ancient Ophir, and to risk assured fame 
for possible conquest, among nations whose walled 
cities were described as equal to the best strong' 
holds of Islam. The rich mediaeval glow en- 
veloping some of the reports charms the literary 
forager, not overfond of statistics, who loves no 
figures so well as figures of speech. Men in 
their summer prime organized roving expeditions 
in quest of fortune, gallant freebooters, made 
ferocious by greed of gold, who started gayly, as 
to a regatta, for the unexplored province of 
Nueva Espagiia. 

They found the Promised Land one of which 
the greater part must forever remain an uninhab- 
itable magnificence. Yet everything reminded 
them of old Spain, especially of the Castiles. 
The chain of snowy peaks, accessible only to the 
untamable Apache, projected against the speck- 
less blue the blade of white teeth which suggested 
the name of Sierra Nevada. The dry, scorched 
table-lands, league after league, stretching away 
under the blazing sun a shadeless desert, were 
like the mesas in the dreariest portions of the 
kingdom of Philip — and the mud hovels of adobe, 
with open apertures for windows, were a perpet- 
ual reminder of the homeless habitations of the 
Castilian peasantry. 

The few rich valleys [pasturas) capable of cul- 
tivation by irrigation were not unlike the vegas 
8 



114 The La7td of the Pueblos. 

of the East, and little streams of melted snow- 
water, filtered down from the •' iced mountain- 
top," cold as snow, clear as glass, still bear the 
lovely names of the rills sparkling along the 
Alpujarras, 

The old hidalgoes looked for better things than 
half-naked savages, mud huts, and stunted corn- 
fields. Sterile and forbidding as the country ap- 
peared, they believed an inheritance was reserved 
for them behind the gloomy mountain walls, be- 
yond the awful caiion, where the black, rushing 
river is shut in by sheer precipices fifteen hundred 
feet high. Sustained by a faculty of self-persua- 
sion equaled by no other people on the face of 
the earth, they pushed on and on through the 
very heart of the wilderness, nearly to the present 
site of Omaha. This was more than three hun- 
dred years ago ; yet are the novel-writers com- 
plaining that v/e have no antiquity, no mystery, 
no dim lights and deep shadows, where the 
imagination of the story-teller may flower and 
bear fruit. 



CHAPTER XI. 

AMONG THE ARCHIVES. A LOVE LETTER. 

One day, while mousing or, as President Lin- 
coln used to say, browsing among the manu- 
scripts, and musing about the dead and-gone 
heroes, and how times have altered since they 
rode out like Paladins of romance to tempt Fortune 
in her high places, I came on a letter which dif- 
fered from the commonplace documents littered 
about, and was not emblazoned with the splash 
of any great seal. It was very yellow and musty, 
stained in one corner by a blue book thrown on 
it in the time of President Johnson. It required 



Among the A^r hives. — A Love Letter. 115 

the daintiest handling. Carefully I unfolded the 
sheet, almost thick as vellum and in danger of 
dropping to tatters, and marked a spot oner 
sealed with wax, flaked off long ago. The 
address was Antonio Eusebio de Cubero, Secre- 
tary of Gen. Don Diego de Vargas, Governor of 
Nueva Mejico. I opened the quaint missive, and 
lo ! a love-letter, dated Seville, November, 1692. 
It began with stately, sweet salute : " To my own 
true love and faithful knight, from his Rosita de 
Castile." Like the Dantean lovers, 

" I turned no further leaf." 

Nearly two centuries the antique billet had 
lain entombed in this earthy sepulchre ; now 
would I bring it to the light again, and, tenderly 
folding the sheet, I bore it to the quiet of my 
own room, for reading at leisure. 

This is the way it runs, written in diminutive 
hand, indistinct at the beginning, now almost 
illegible. With tender words, not ahvays in cor- 
rectest spelling, the little Rose of Castile writes to 
Eusebio Antonio, that her father and big brother 
wage war in Algeria. She had just learned to 
sing, with her mandolin, a madrigal, which she 
quotes at length and will not bear translation. I 
cannot catch the subtle essence, the exquisite 
Spanish-Arab perfume and prison it in harsh 
English. I know nothing in our language so 
nearly approaching the dainty love-ditty as the 
song of Burns, which will live till the last lover 
dies : 

"Had we never loved so kindly, 
Had we never loved so blindly, 
Never met and never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.' 

She told how, when the j^oung moon was shin- 
ing, and the fat, cross duenna was fast asleep, 
she had crept from her side and out of reach of 



Ii6 The Land of the Pueblos. 

her snoring, to wander along the Guadalquiver, 
where the citron shade is deepest and the silver 
lIHes shadow singing waters. She was tired of 
dances and of flattery, and that odious Manuehta, 
and, hghted only by the moon and the glow- 
worm, the maiden lingered by the fountain till 
the bell in the tower rang two. '* There, by the 
bed of sweet basil — dost remember Eusebio 
caro ? '' 

And what for, lady fair ? Ay dc mi ! Is there 
a reader so dull as not to know, without telling, 
'twas to dream, and to dream, and to dream ? 

Easy to picture her in graceful youth and all 
beautiful. The delicate Murillo head ; the An- 
dalusian eyes glancing this way and that from the 
arched window Moresque ; shyly she flitted out 
the barred gate among the myrtles, stepping so 
lightly she scarcely startled the dove who stirred 
in her nest ; the flower-like face draped by the 
veiling, envious rebosa, held close by the rose- 
leaf hand ; the one bright circlet shining on the 
taper finger — can you not see her stealing along 
through the golden orange orchard, the almond's 
snow-white glitter? There, with infinite love 
and longing, with lips waiting to be kissed, she 
listened to the nightingale's song to the rose, 
starting at the silken rustle of her dress ; and as 
the strokes of the bell shook the giant pillars of 
the cathedral, fleeing like a guilty thing back to 
the snoring, fat aunt. Only she lingered a 
moment to look up at the indigo sky and the 
slim Giralda tower, there by the bed of sweet 
basil — "■ dost remember, Eusebio caro ? " 

Such was the soft Rosita de Castile, and she 
asks the old question : When dost thou dream of 
me, dearest ? It is a sort of treachery to publish 
the deep secret, and I beg pardon of the shade 
of the gentle lady, if it lingers round the hard 
clay of which these walls are made. tender 



Among the Archives. — A Love Letter, 117 

love ! O fond young heart, that stopped beating 
nearly two hundred years ago ! I fear Don An- 
tonio Eusebio was hardly so true as thou wast. 
Knights-errant, tilting through the New World, 
had no such quest as the blameless Sir Galahad, 
though they pushed the '' pundonor " to the very 
verge of nonsense. Cortez set an example which 
his successors were quick to follow. Under the 
garb of gallantry, they wedded paramour^ and 
with high Castilian pride proclaimed their honor 
bright when they were ready to fight dragons 
and die in steel harness full knightly. 

You remember, reader dear, Millais's " Hugue- 
not Lovers "? Of course, you must, for you have 
often seen it, and even the poor prints retain some 
liintof the lovely original. In all her long gal- 
leries Art has no fairer creation. It is loveher 
even than Ary Scheffer's *' Marguerite," than the 
fallen "Francescadi Rimini." The loving arms 
clinging to the handsome youth; the wistful, 
upturned face, so anxious, pale and tearful, on 
the eve of parting, which her fears make sad as 
St. Bartholomew's — such charm was in the face 
of my Rosita de Castile ; mine by right of adop- 
tion, though she died more than a century before 
I was born. 

How he looked we know by the portraits of 
Velasquez. Tall and stately was he, lithe and 
sinewy as one skilled in arms, manly sports, and 
fond of hounds and hunting; a long lean hand, 
with blazing jewels — one a precious fire-opal, the 
Girasol of Zimapan ; olive skin and heavy brows ; 
eyes like sharp stilettos ; peaked beard, curled 
mustachios, trimmed and perfumed ; black dress- 
coat, silken hose, silver shoe-buckles, spotless 
neck-ruff; chains and ribbons of honor; golden 
cross richly broidered on his mantle; jingling 
spurs, the mark of knighthood — this was Don 
Antonio Eusebio de Cubero, who thought to 



Ii8 The Land of the Pueblos. 

swell his fortune and fill the measure of his fame 
under the royal banner upheld by Governor- 
General Vargas. 

Nor must we forget to name the good long 
rapier, worn yet in old Spain, where the sword 
forever stays the scepter. Add to this pictorial 
dress the graces which wait on youth — refined 
courtesy and lofty presence, come of the habit of 
command — and you have the secretary of the 
hero who went, saw, and conquered Santa Fe for 
the crown of Spain. 

The beloved Eusebio Antonio kept no copy of 
his vows and promises ; but I warrant, when 
there were none but the angels to hear, they were 
given — made binding and strong. In fair Seville 
the young lovers stole from the lights and the 
dancing, down by the bed of sweet basil^ to seal 
their contract with solemn oaths. 

" Mixed with kisses, sweeter, sweeter 
Than anything on earth." 

The dear Eusebio was lured away from Rosita's 
bower to that New World which is the old. 
Across the sea had floated, faint and far, like 
dying echoes coming near, stories of a land of 
wild men and beasts, strange birds, and hissing 
serpents ; of mountains of rock inscribed with 
mystic hieroglyphs, and terraced pyramids, up- 
holding undying fires — temples the incense of 
whose altars ascended forever into a sky of 
speckless sapphire. These were the regions of 
finest furs, of gold-dust and ivory, of silver, pearls, 
and precious stones, all to be had for the gather- 
ing. Such tales were as singing sirens, as airy 
hands beckoning in the shadowy distances of 
dim and unknown shores. 

What wonder the young men were fired with 
the idea of enriching impoverished estates by the 
plunder of opulent cities, and old men approved 
their resolution to grasp some portion of this 



Among the Archives. — A Love Letter. 119 

wealth, tc march with triumphant banners 
through the length and breadth of the land, all 
the while striking stout blows for Holy Cross ? 

In that age of few books, when writing was a 
clerkly accomplishment, there had come down 
from the fathers many traditions of the hero who 
had wrested the scepter from the hand of Ata- 
hualpa on the heights of the Andes. The dis- 
coverer of the Mississippi was a century asleep 
under its rushing waters. They had heard the 
name and fame of the peerless Englishman — sea- 
man, soldier, courtier, poet, historian — who 
souglit a city of gold on the banks of the Oronoco. 
Nor could they believe that genius and valor died 
when the aged paralytic, beggared and heart- 
broken, laid his head on the block, saying : " It 
matters little how the head lieth, so that the 
heart be right," the noblest head that ever rolled 
in English dust 

The supernatural swayed men's minds in those 
days, and myriads of imaginary foes were to be 
fought, besides the beasts in their dens and the 
naked, painted savage. No doubt that Antonio 
Eusebio de Cubero felt equal to every danger he 
must face — the perilous voyage, and the many 
miseries which Rosita's fears magnified out of all 
bounds. 

The parting for years so weary shook the heart 
of the little Rose. Better than I can tell, my 
reader knows it. The lingering clasp of hands, 
the yearning gaze, the tears, the vows, the pray- 
ers ; the slow ship (there was no steamer then), 
with gay pennons and fluttering signals, sailing 
straight into the sunset, into eternity, away, away 
out of the world ; a fading sail on the flushed 
water, a speck on the horizon's edge ; he is gone, 
taking with him her happiness, her smiles, her 
passionate young heart. 

But they would return, those Caballeros on the 



120 The Land of the Pueblos, 

deck of the ''Columella," heroes every one, 
bringing the wealth of Pizarro and the glory of 
Cortez. ' The thought was cheer and comfort to 
Rosita in the long, slow waiting — one of the 
hardest things to be learned in the lesson of lov- 
ing. Men have a thousand objects to live for — 
the whole world is theirs, and in their changeful, 
many-colored life love is only one slender, shin- 
ing thread ; women have nothing but their hearts. 
He went out to a field of limitless possibilities, 
filled with the charm of novelty, variety, adven- 
ture; she to her maiden bower, her lute, her 
embroidery, to dream over the love-words till his 
very name would thrill and send the blood danc- 
ing through her veins ; to wait through the dull 
sameness of empty days, dropping one by one 
into weary, silent nights; to watch the last light 
against the towers, the last sparkles on the sea, 
making it a sea of glass mingled with fire, and 
entreat the Mother of Sorrows with piteous 
prayers for the wanderer in the vague, far-off 
country beyond them; to sicken for gracious 
messages and letters that do not come, and yet 
be loyal in the belief they have been written, 
they are somewhere — this is the sweet patience 
born of woman, the brave, persistent faith, almost 
a religion. 

It is the one who sails away who forgets; the 
one who stays at home who remembers. He 
was a false teacher who said Paradise is in the 
shadov/ of the crossing of cimeters. You and I 
know, dear reader, and our little Rose of Seville 
knew, it is in the shadow of the one we love. 



CHAPTER XII. 



AMONG THE ARCHIVES. 

(Contimied.) 



From the journal of Capitan-General Don 
Domingo Jeronso Petriz de Cruzate (what a 
Spanish ring there is in that name!), who was 
governor and military commandant of Nueva 
Mejico from 1684 to 1689, we can form some 
idea of the state of affairs in the province. But 
a few detached pages of this important document 
survive. They appear the clearest where all are 
confused 

The Spaniards had been driven from the coun- 
try as far south as the Texan line. Cruzate's 
little army failed in the reconquest of the liberty- 
loving Pueblos, and the service was finally en- 
trusted to General Vargas, or, as it was anciently 
written, Bargas, to whom the faithful knight and 
true love was secretary. 

The chronology of this period is some times 
in a hopeless tangle; but the march of Governor- 
General Don Diego de Vargas is pretty well con- 
nected. He lives in history as one of the most 
bigoted and brutal of the Conquistadores. As 
has been written of the Duke of Alva: " His 
vices were colossal, and he had no virtues." 
From shreds and patches of mouldy MSS. his 
march is traced with tolerable clearness, and the 
conduct of the foreigners was so nearly alike 
that their stories are much the same. 

By and with consent of the royal audience, he 
:eft home and pleasures in the City of Mexico 
for El Paso del Norte, to organize one hundred 
Mendly Indians and less than two hundred 
mounted men. Among the latter was the secre- 
tary, Antonio Eusebio de Cubero^ who on fiesta 

121 



122 The Land of the Pueblos. 

days wore a light glove on his casque, a love-knot 
on his spear. 

The country swarmed with a numerous and 
enraged enemy, and every league of ground was 
contested. Vargas seemed awake to the perils 
of the situation, and to have a wholesome fear of 
public opinion besides, for on the night before 
marching he wrote to Count Galvas, Viceroy of 
Mexico- "I have determined to risk life and all 
in the attempt, and am prepared rather to be 
considered rash to being looked upon as a map 
of too much caution, thereby exposing my repu- 
tation to remarks." He was successful from the 
very outset. The reader will remember that the 
Pueblos lived in community houses, built in a 
hollow square. A whole tribe sometimes inhab- 
ited one house, and one after another they were 
reduced to submission. 

The invading army found game in abundance; 
but the blessing of the early and the latter rain 
is not for New Mexico, and the scarcity of water 
made great suffering. " In roasting-ear time " 
the bold land-robbers feasted in the cornfields ; 
" hares like those of the Castiles " furnished nour- 
ishing food; and in all their journeying simple 
natives gave the fair visitants their choicest stores, 
for paltry trinkets of glass pewter, and tinsel. 
The blaze of their camp-fires attracted large num- 
bers of rattlesnakes — " the serpent with tiger-col- 
ored skin and castanets in its tail;" the moun- 
tain cat's green eyes glared at them from the 
black rim of the illuminated circle; and lovely 
gazelles shyly approached the springs, where they 
had hitherto drank undisturbed, to sniff the tainted 
air and gaze at the strangers. 

There survives one description of a large torpid 
lizard the explorers encountered, striped with red, 
white and black bars — a hideous creature ; and a 
horned snake, kept in spirits, to be sent the 



Among the Archives. — Cuntinued, 123 

viceroy. Here, too, we hear first of the won- 
derful traveHng stones that within the distance of 
a few feet of each other seek a common centre, 
roll together, and lie close like eggs in a nest. 
They were in the bottom of shallow basins in the 
levels, and their magnetism was a source of won- 
dering awe to the superstitious soldiery. The 
reporter, a naturalist of some sort, whose name is 
lost, begs a moderate subsidy, that he may em- 
ploy natives to help capture the venomous beasts 
and assist in making collections. The barbarians 
refused tc work, even with wages, and thus writes 
Vargas : " I have been obliged to raze whole 
villages to the ground, in order to punish their 
obstinacy." Possibly here we have the secret of 
the uninscribed ruins now slowly crumbling down 
in the valleys by the narrowmg waters of the 
Pecos and the Rio Grande. 

The chief burden is the Indian. The chroni- 
cles are heavily laden with details of grievances 
the conquerors were obliged to bear from him. 
How he refused to accept slavery as his best 
estate; and, worse than that, how he rebelled 
against the power which would force him to 
worship the unknown, unseen God. whose sign 
was the red cross, whose ambassadors' march was 
tracked by the smoke of cities sacked and burnt, 
lands made desolate, the widow's cry, the orphan's 
wail. 

The Spaniards were disciples of the school of 
Narvaez, who on his death-bed, being urged by 
his confessor to forgive his enemies : said "Bless 
your heart, Father, I have none. I have killed 
them all." In those good old times — for as the 
poet sings, 

" All times when old are good"— 
the religion of the governor must be the relig- 
ion of the governed. The Pueblos were and 
still are sun worshipers ; and every day their 



124 The Land of the Pueblos. 

deity — the peculiar friend of the red race — rose 
with unveiled face, rejoicing the eyes and cheer- 
ing the hearts of his children. Why should they 
believe in One whose followers taught that sul- 
phurous flames were in waiting for all who had 
not money enough to pay for certain mystic rites 
held over the dead body ? Whenever there was 
chance of escape, the Indians fled before the 
mailed and mounted warriors fast as their own 
mountain antelopes, and the Pueblos were rapidly 
brought to submission. To perfect the surrender 
of soul and body, after a city was taken, Father 
Francisco Corvera baptized by thousands at a 
time. He was attended by several Franciscan 
priests, charged with the reconversion of those 
fallen from the true faith. They were forced to 
assemble before a large cross in the plaza. There 
the red sinners were absolved from their sins, and, 
on pain of death, forbidden their idolatrous dances, 
especially the cachina, the delight of the aborigi- 
nal heart, and, as the old MS. words it, "were 
to be obedient to the divine and human majesty." 

Very devout was this Vargas. After the re- 
duction of Jemez, he reported to the Viceroy of 
Mexico, Count Galvas : " This action having been 
fought the day before Santiago Day, I believe 
that glorious apostle and patron saint interceded 
in our behalf, and which was the cause of our 
signal success." 

Here are some of the mild requirements laid 
on the baptized heathen by his order : 

''They must keep crosses over their doors; 
treat ministers with love and reverence ; and, 
whenever they meet them, kiss the hem of their 
habit, with submission and veneration. They 
must have their bows in order and ten arrows, to 
offend and defend ; and none shall dare use the 
arms of the Spaniards, for the reason they are 
prohibited by the royal ordinances.'- 



Among the Archives. — Continued. T25 

Fighting his way northward, near Zuni, he 
leveled a large pueblo, *' the iizc of a long horse- 
race ; " but how long the horse-race was in that 
time your correspondent has no means of know- 
ing. By his own autograph on the everlasting 
hills we know when and in what spirit the 
haughty hidalgo passed that point for the recap- 
ture of La Villa Real de Santa Fe, then in the 
hands of its rightful owners. 

One hundred and ninety miles southwest of 
Santa Fe, ten miles from the Arizona line, fifty 
miles west of the dividing ridge of the continent 
— called, in consequence, Sierra Madre — is an- 
tique Zuni, a city of memory. It is one of the 
seven vanishing cities sought by Coronado in 
1 540, and by wandering knights from Spain and 
Portugal in the time of Philip Second. Capital 
of the fabled kingdom of Cibola, it is the most 
ancient and most interesting, because the least 
changed, of all the pueblos of New Mexico. 

When Governor-General Vargas and his gallant 
little army reached this pueblo, they halted for 
rest and recruiting, before pressing on to the City 
of Holy Faith. The General was accompanied 
by his secretary, the beloved Antonio Eusebio, 
and they must have looked with the deepest con- 
cern at the stout walls of the strange fortress. I 
have not been able to learn whether he attacked 
it or not. Even a successful and intrepid leader, 
with the help of the red allies, used to savage 
warfare, would deliberate well before besieging 
that city set on a hill, which must be carried by 
assault, in the face of arrows slings, lances, huge 
stones rolled from above, and burning balls of 
cotton dipped in oil. The modern Zuni, a com- 
pact town of fifteen hundred souls, stands in the 
centre of tl\,e valley of the Colorado Chichito 
(Little Red River); but ancient Zuni, now in 
ruins, was several miles away, on the top of a 



126 The Land of the Pueblos. 

mesa, or precipice, one thousand feet high, almost 
inaccessible from the valley. It was built in five 
stories, with thick walls of stone laid in mud 
mortar, terraced from without and fortified by 
towers. A formidable citadel. 

The camp of the victorious army was probably 
in the present camping-ground, a choice spot, 
where grass grows with tint of richest green, 
lovely to the eye as fresh lilies — a garden beauty, 
skirting the spring of cool, sweet water, about 
fifteen miles from old Zuni. To reach it from 
Santa Fe, the traveler of to-day crosses a country 
very beautiful and fertile, where rapid change of 
geological structure makes varying change of 
scenery. Maize grows in the valley without irri- 
gation — not an acequia in sight; and peaches, 
planted by the Jesuit Fathers, are deliciously 
sweet. After straining over sand and rock, in the 
hot, white sun-glare, with the fever-thirst which 
comes from drinking alkali water, it must have 
been a deep pleasure for the soldiery to leave the 
trackless plain, and lie in the cool, rich grass, 
restful alike to jaded steed and war-worn rider ; 
to feast their eyes on the delicate enamel of green 
— the setting of this Diamond of the Desert ; 
and watch, as we have, the birds of strange note 
and plumage coming and going, with merry 
twitter, flirt and flutter, to bathe and drink in the 
sparkling fountain. 

Enchanting effects of light and color vary the 
passing hours. A rose-blush of exquisite haze 
greets the rising sun ; and the mirage — most 
marvelous of Nature's mysteries— often swims in 
mid-air in early morning, when the first warm 
flush has faded. The perfect blue, curtaining the 
valley, is jeweled with opal and turquoise. That 
ethereal brilliance allows no " middle tones." 
The sun sets as on the Nile, and when the flaring 
disc sinks low suddenly the hidden splendor is 



Among the Archives. — Continued, 127 

unveiled — -''a vision sent from afar, that mortals 
may feebly learn how beautiful is Heaven." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AMONG THE ARCHIVES. 

{Continued.) 

From Zuni dispatches were sent back to Count 
Galvas by a line of swift runners reaching to 
Mexico. Perhaps a letter to Seville from the 
faithful knight, who now had time for sweet 
thoughts of love, without which this were the 
wilderness without the manna. I hope the reader 
does not forget my young hero ; for I love him 
dearly, and mean to stand up for him to the last, 
through evil as well as through good report. 
Skillful furbishers did what they could to restore 
the original luster to dulled and dinted armor, 
and in the idlesse of camp the secretary must 
often have looked up at tv.o enormous pillars of 
sandstone towering high on the sides of the 
inesUy appearing chiseled into human figures of 
colossal size, fixed, immortal as the statues of 
Aboo Simbel. At evening, while my Rosita 
walked through the drowsy Spanish city, 

" Guarded by the old duenna, 
Fierce and' sharp as a hyena, 
With her goggles and her fan 
Waving off each wicked man," 

and Antonia Eusebio was smoothing his draggled 
plumes, he probably heard from friendly Indians 
the wild legend still told there by the red light 
of the camp-fires. The tradition runs that Zuni 



128 The Land of the Piteblos. 

is the only city on the earth which bore the 
weight of the Flood. Ages ago, an eternity be- 
fore white men came, rain fell in streams from the 
sky ; adobe houses melted away, and the whole 
world and everything in it was fast sinking from 
sight. The neighboring tribes escaped from the 
rushing waters to the top of this mesa; but the 
waves rose so fast nearly all perished before 
reaching the summit of the cliff. In the midst of 
their distress a black night {iioche triste) fell on 
the land. Their God had forgotten them, the 
sun turned his face away from his children, and 
" darkness was the universe." Still the waters 
rose higher and higher, incessant, undiminished ; 
still the people in blind panic pressed to the top- 
most foothold, threatened with the fast-rising 
overflow. Above the black abyss no light of sun 
or star, sign of promise, dove, or olive. In des- 
perate extremity, they sought to avert the curse 
by sacrifice. No time was there for song or 
prayer, altar-fire or incantation. They snatched 
the children of the cacique (a daughter lovely as 
light, a smile of the Great Spirit, and a son beau- 
tiful as morning), adorned them with a few gay 
feathers, and hurled them from the steep into the 
boiling abyss — an offering to an offended Deity. 
The waters were surging within a few feet of the 
top of the mesa. There the proud waves were 
stayed. The victims were changed to the stone 
columns, a sign from Heaven marking the moun- 
tain of refuge where the propitiatory offering was 
accepted, and everlastingly commemorating the 
Deluge. 

The mesa is a mile across ; an irregular figure, 
defined by abrupt bluffs, almost perpendicular. 
On it are the remains of two pueblos, whose out- 
lines are clearly traceable — the dimensions of 
rooms and inner v/alls. Like all ancient towns, 
they were fortified with an outer wall in the shape 



Among the Archives. — Contmued. 129 

of the letter V, to resist invasions of warlike tribes, 
and watch-towers were placed at regular intervals. 
Crumbling walls, made of little blocks of stone 
laid in mud-mortar, are scattered over the ground 
in heaps from two to ten feet high. Here the 
fox and coyote prowl by night, and the antiqua- 
rian haunts it by day. After careful investigation^ 
with Indian guides, they report the standing walls 
rest on ruins of still greater age. The primitive 
masonry must have been about six Teet thick. 
In the more recent buildings the walls are not 
over eighteen inches thick. The small sandstone 
blocks are laid with neatness and regularity. 
Broken pottery is strewn about, and arrow-heads 
of obsidian, flint, and jasper. 

After the Deluge, when the waters abated off 
the face of the earth, the tribes abandoned the hill 
city, and lived in the pleasant valley till the Span- 
ish invasion, when they again fled to the top of 
the iJiesa. They turned at every place possible 
and fortified strongly the two approaches by 
which the outworks could be assaulted, and held 
out against the foe a long time. At last the 
hights were scaled. The mail-clad warriors, with 
their swords of matchless temper, triumphed over 
the rude arms of the feeble natives. From the 
highest watch-tower the banner of the Cross was 
unfurled against the brilliant sky, unflecked by 
cloud or shadow; and sun -lighted spears ghttered 
in the narrow streets of the devoted, the Holy 
City. 

Imprinted in the solid rock, as in clay, is shown 
and may be seen this day the foot-print of the 
first white man who reached the summit. When 
you visit Zuni, the old guide, if you happen to 
get the right one, will repeat this story, for a 
slight consideration. 

The Zunis are the Yankees of the Pueblos — 
self-supporting, keen at a bargain, thrifty, orderly, 
9 



13© The Land of the Pueblos. 

clean ; that is, clean for Indians. I presume 
every head in the Holy City could furnish num- 
berless offerings such as Diogenes (oldest of 
tramps) cracked on the pure altar of the chaste 
Diana. 

What Cholula was to the Aztec, Zuni is to the 
Pueblos ; sacred as the City of David to the sons 
of Israel. Touching the religion of this people 
opens a subject so broad and so charming I am 
tempted to give it more than a passing glance, 
but space forbids. They are pantheists in the 
fullest sense of the word, and, though missions 
have been established among them three hundred 
years, they, like all aborigines, set their face as a 
flint against change, and still keep to the ancient 
beliefs and customs. They worship the Supreme 
One, whose name it is death to utter ; Mont- 
ezuma, his brother and equal ; and the Sun to 
whom they pray and smoke, because his eye is 
always open and his ear attends the prayers of 
the red men. The Moon is the Sun's wife, and 
eclipses are family quarrels, that will result in dis- 
aster to the world if they are not soon reconciled. 
The stars are their children ; the largest is the 
oldest. 

Besides these superior deities, there is the 
great snake, to which they look for life, by com- 
mand of Montezuma. 

Like our sea-serpent on the Atlantic Coast, he 
glideth at his own sweet will, is seen at unex- 
pected places, as suits his pleasure, is longer than 
the tallest pine, and <' thick as many men put 
together." ^ 

It has been well said the barbarian is the most 
religious of mortals. His dependence on the ele- 
ments for food and comfort makes the primitive 
man regard Nature witli eager interest. Power- 
less against her forces, if there be something mys- 
terious, threatening, the untutored soul supplicates 





Zuni Basketry, ana Toy Cradles. 



Among the Archives. — Continued. 131 

it in prayer, with the inborn faith down deep in 
every breast that behind the visible hes close the 
Invisible, the Creator, who rules the world he 
made. 

They adore the rainbow, bright headband of 
the sky, rivers, mountains, stones, trees, bears, 
and other animals. Their fables appear mean- 
ingless to us ; but we must not despise them, for 
many of our beliefs are equally so to them. The 
aboriginal brain can never comprehend why 
white men worship a sheet of bunting — white, red, 
spangled blue, with the eagle totem — suffer for it, 
fight for it in armies numberless as the sands of 
the desert, and die for it without murmur. 

The myths of the furthest West are wonderfully 
like the myths of the furthest East. Studying 
them, one cannot fail in the conviction that 
humanity, in all the ages and races, is the same, 
formed on one model, unfolding under the influ- 
ence of the same inspiration ; that, left to their 
own will, men do like things under like condi- 
tions, and that certain religious ideas are born in 
every heart, sage or savage, making worship a 
human necessity. Here, as in ancient Thessaly, 
the powers of Heaven have haunts in the echoing 
mountain-sides, by pebbly springs, in the gloomy 
shades of the whispering pines, and under the 
rushing river and cataract. 

In New Mexico, where the food supply depends 
so largely on the winds and the uncertain rainfall, 
the savage is most anxious to conciliate the gods 
who preside over these forces. There are altars 
for their worship, mystic stones among the 
gnarled cedars of the Zuni mesa, and a spring of 
sweet water, sacred to the rain god, rimmed with 
pebbles precious as the oracular jewels on the 
breast of the Jewish high priest. No animal is 
allowed to drink of the holy waters, and they are 
purified every year, with vessels dedicated to the 



132 The Lajtd of the Pueblos. 

service — most ancient jars, handed down through 
the generations since the evening and the morn- 
ing were tlic first day. No Zuni drinks from the 
consecrated ollas, for the spirit of the spring is 
always watching, and will avenge the indignity 
with instant death. Once a year, in August, the 
cacique, with his chief counselors, visits the spring, 
and washes its walls, with the elaborately-tinted 
vases, which were hallowed by the first high priest. 
The jars are ranged in order on the rim of the well. 
The frog, the rattlesnake, the tortoise are painted 
on them, animals sacred to the presiding deity. 
Woe to the offender who shall profane them by 
a touch ! A fate awaits him like that of Uzza, 
when he put forth his hand to hold the ark in the 
threshing-floor of Chidon. The lightning of the 
dread god of storms will strike the sinner dead. 

Somewhere near is a mysterious divine bird, 
kept in a secret shrine. As Herodotus says of 
the Phoenix : " I have never seen it myself, except 
in a picture." 

Like the old Greek, the Pueblo looks up and 
sees the dead among the stars. When the 
Aurora flashes a strange, flickering light along 
the northern sky, it is the mustering of the spirits 
of the mighty warriors, whirling their spears and 
marching with proud steps, as the shade of 
Agamemnon strode across the fields of Asphodel. 
The earthquake's rumble is the groaning and 
turning in sleep of a big old giant, with voice of 
thunder eyes of fire, and breath of flame. He 
was so immense that he sprawled across the 
whole plain, and so powerful the immortal gods, 
finding they could not kill him, tore up a high 
mountain and laid it on him, to keep him quiet. 
What is this but Enceladus ? 

" Under Mount Etna he lies. 

It is slumber, it is not death ; 
For he struggles at times to arise, 

And above him the lurid skies 
Are hot with his ftery breatli. 





Zufii Water Vases. 



Among the ArcJnves. — Continued. 133 

"The crags are piled on Ins breast, 

The earth is heaped on his liead ; 
Bnt the groans of liis wiki luirest, 

Thougli smothered and half-suppressed, 
Are heard, and he is not dead." 

The best hope and strongest faith of the 
Pueblos are in the second coming of the great 
King, who is to raise the dead, judge the world, 
and reign in peace and righteousness. Strug- 
gling with shadows and weird imaginings, work- 
ing out their destiny with many a bitter failure, 
in anguish of heart they instinctively reach 
through the darkness for the almighty hand of 
the unseen helper. The sons of Montezuma, as 
they love to call themselves, believe the fullness 
of time is come, and the return of their Messiah 
at hand. He will leave his bright sun-house, to 
right the wrongs and heal the woes of the race 
so mercilessly stricken down by the Spaniards, 
Then there will be no more death, neither sorrow, 
nor crying ; neither shall there be any more pain. 
Their ideas are vague and dim. Legends trea- 
cherous as memory, and growing fainter from 
generation to generation, for their wise men are 
without open vision, and their sagamores have 
neither written prophecy nor guiding stars. 

The view from the top of the mesa is unspeaka- 
bly beautiful. Twined among multitudes of 
peaks, like tangled ribbons, are streakings of 
azure and purple, beneath which, as we know by 
experience, are out spread valleys, broad, treeless, 
scorched with a tropic heat, which at noonday 
seems like quivering flame. The pre-historic 
ruins cover about thirty acres, and are scattered 
in confusion on the level plateau under the wind- 
whipped cedars. Here, until within a few years, 
was kept the consecrated fire burning for cen- 
turies — the Montezuma fire ; but time fails to 
tell it all. Another day we will come again, and 
hear the fanciful traditions, the misty old super- 
stitions which hover about the neglected shrines. 



134 The Land of the Pueblos. 

They are given with an opulence of fancy which 
throws mists before your eyes. In the hush of 
solitude, the effect of the place is mysterious, 
and reflection drops easily into belief. Few 
worshipers now sacrifice in the primeval temples, 
where of old they must have flocked by hundreds, 
cherishing the promise of the second coming of 
Montezuma from the pleasant land where the sun 
rises. The chiefs crouch with faces toward the 
east as the morning star goes softly out, and the 
gray dawn melts into the light of day, yearning 
as human hearts have yearned in all ages, seeking 
a sign from Heaven. The legend runs that he 
who shall first behold the King in his beauty 
shall receive some great favor at his hand. Some- 
times they wait in silence ; again they chant a 
hymn to their god, watching till he shakes his 
" plumes of fire " above the mountain-tops and 
shoots his radiant spears across the roseate sky. 
But the oracles are dumb. Well are they keep- 
ing the mighty secret ! 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AMONG THE ARCHIVES. 
(Cow^ewwecZ.) 

A FEW miles from Zuni, as we move eastward, 
there gradually comes to view a bold, high, sand- 
stone rock, a quadrangular wall, white, veined 
with yellow, named Inscription Rock. It is 
nearly a mile in length and more than two hun- 
dred feet in hight. Approaching it, tower and 
turret, architrave and pillar rise slowly into view. 
We see a mighty structure Nature has wrought 
in noble architecture, and that no extravagant 
coloring gave it the old Spanish name El Moro 
— The Castle. The surface of the mountain- wall 



A7nong the Archives. — Continued. 135 

on the north and south faces is written over with 
names otherwise lost to history, records that light 
the dark way like shining torches. Some are 
deeply and beautifully cut into the plane surface 
and reach back more than three hundred years. 
The older inscriptions are Spanish, carefully 
graven upon the vertical faces, about the hight 
of a man's head from the ground. Usually a 
date, a brief memorandum of the purpose and 
line of march of the Castilian soldiery, the names 
of travellers exploring the country, or Franciscan 
friars going into the wilderness in search of the 
lost tribes of Israel. 

At the foot of the towering steep is a gushing 
spring of sparkling water, and fresh grass, such 
as is not often seen except in narrow valleys 
among the arid plains of the territories. After 
rest, food, siesta, the traveler, looking up to the 
immense table of stone before him, naturally adds 
his own name to the constantly-increasing list on 
the written mountain, which has now grown into 
a confused mass of hieroglyphs — Indian signs, 
the favorite being the track of a moccasin, indi- 
cative of marching; decayed and decaying in- 
scriptions, and names of old adventurers. Let 
us loiter awhile and read, for it is not often such 
a register is laid open to any tourist. 

Close to the left corner, almost hidden by 
brushwood, is the oldest date, engraved in the 
rock nearly a century before the landing of the 
Pilgrim Fathers — Don Jose de Basconzales, 
1526. This is the sole record of his expedition, 
at once his history and his cenotaph. He went 
with an exploring party from the City of Mexico, 
and never returned ; nor were they heard of after 
leaving Zuni. Whether they perished in secret 
defiles, cut off by the skulking Apache, who 
dogged every step of the invader, or gave out 
through fatigue and thirst in the deep caiions and 



136 The Land of the Pueblos. 

sterile vegas, belongs to the voiceless past. In 
some unnamed spot he sleeps with the silent 
majority — a mighty company. 

In the moist air of England these letters would 
be mossed over and wholly illegible ; but the dry, 
dewless air of New Mexico holds decay in check, 
and in this regard almost equals the atmosphere 
of Egypt. Among recent inscriptions appear the 
autographs of the United States explorers — 
Whipple, Simpson, and others; and still nearer 
our day the signs manual of the Smiths, Joneses, 
Browns, and the rest. The sixth name on the 
list is the one whose fortunes we are trying to 
trace out and follow, less for the sake of his king 
and country than because he was attended by the 
true love and faithful knight of the little Rose of 
Castile. 

It runs : Here passed Don Diego de Bargas, 
to conquer Santa Fe for the royal crown, New 
Mexico, at his own cost, in the year 1692. 

Many secrets we cannot guess are hidden in 
the silence there, with the sands of ages drifted 
above them; but it is plain to see Vargas was in 
high feather when he made his proud record on 
the wall of El Moro. Observe the pert little 
crow, ''at his own cost." 

Luckily, there is still extant a number of docu- 
ments bearing on his administration among the 
state papers at Santa Fe, or we might think the 
princely fellow, going out conquering and to con- 
quer, scattered commissions and victories with a 
free hand. 

How La Villa Real de Santa Fc was lost and 
won is an old tale and often told, and details of 
battles, at least of Indian fighting, are not inter- 
esting. Enough that, after the summer camp at 
or near Old Zuni, Vargas with his army pressed 
on to the siege of the Capital. The slayers were 
a few hundreds of white men, with red allies ; the 



Among the AirJiives. — Continued. 137 

slain were of a number that has never been 
reckoned. 

Father Francisco Corvera administered absolu- 
tion to the entire command before battle, and, as 
the foreign army was preparing for a general 
onslaught, the Pueblos stole out in the night, 
leaving the city in possession of the fair race 
which left nothing but desolation in its track. 

The brutal instincts of this Vargas (whom I 
hate, and the judicious reader must hate too) 
hardened and intensified with increasing power 
and advancing years. One of the worst of his 
bad race, he labored unceasingly for the conver- 
sion of the aborigines. His position allowed 
immeasurable sweep for cruelty which we may 
be sure he enjoyed to the utmost, and the cross 
became the object of bitter hatred to the heathen 
he claimed for an inheritance. He it was who 
wrote to the viceroy of Mexico, applying for more 
troops to carry on the crusade: "You might as 
well try to convert Jews without the Inquisition 
as Indians without soldiers." 

Notwithstanding his religious zeal and boast 
recorded on Inscription Rock at Zuni, Vargas 
missed the high place at which he aimed, not, like 
Columbus and Cortez, because he deserved too 
greatly, but because the regiment in garrison and 
the corporation of Santa Fe, in 1695, presented 
charges to the viceroy. Count Galvas, against him 
for peculation. He was accused of using public 
-money for private purposes; of drawing on the 
public treasury for purchase of corn, mules, etc. 
for settlers, and of selling them and pocketing 
the proceeds. ''Also of having drawn drafts 
and received moneys for expenses never incurred." 

He was removed from office 1697, and with 
him, doubtless, the faithful knight and true love, 
Don Antonio Eusebio de Cubero, who we will 
believe had the soul of a true knight, and no part 
or lot in these ignoble transactions. 



138 The Land of the Pueblos. 

Whatever he was, Rosita saw him with eyes 
anointed ; from the beginning a hero predestined 
to triumph on every field he might enter. I do 
beheve that, in the rough campaigning through 
the land of sand and thorn, he kept her lovely 
face — the Millais face — in his heart of hearts. 
That he never vowed a vow nor kissed a kiss that 
was not hers, and, loyal to his own Rose of Cas- 
tile, as he was to his king, he marched in the 
triumph through the streets of Seville. There 
ministrels and troubadours hymned high praises 
(romances they were called), and bright lady-loves 
waved silken scarfs to the conquistadores, home 
from the far New World. They were men in 
the bloom of youth, the very flower of the 
Peninsula, and Antonio Eusebio de Cubero was 
proudest and noblest where all were proud and 
many noble. 

From the arched window, set in quaint fret- 
work and arabesques, Rosita looked out and the 
banner over her was love. Perhaps the Millais 
face — that eager, anxious, haunting face — flushed 
a little at sight of the grand parade in the pomp 
and circumstance the old Spaniard loved so well. 
The soft, dark eyes were not bewildered by the 
rich confusion of color, the far-floating flags, the 
dazzle of steel and of silver. Swift glances 
singled out one beneath the wavy folds of the 
royal standard, brave as he was beautiful, whose 
prancing steed, flashing arms, crest, and plume 
were familiar, whose sash her own soft hands 
embroidered. 

Let us picture reunion after years of separation, 
joy after anguish, the rapture of rescue from 
peril, and so leave them, walking with happy 
feet by the bed of sweet basil, as the first lovers 
walked in the cool of the day under the palms 
of Paradise. 

While I write, the letter of the dear, dead 



Among the Archives. — Cojitinued. 139 

woman lies on the table before me ; the fading 
sign from a rose-leaf hand that has been part of 
the dust of old Spain so many and many a year. 
Frail thing, most perishable, outlasting kings, 
thrones, the wrecks of states, the decay of ages! 
Closing day finds me dreaming over it in the 
waning light. I look to the purpling hills. As 
the sun sinks, they change to fairy tents, under 
a line of exquisite color, pink, orange, pale sea 
green, the changeful fringe on the banner of 
night, ending far up the zenith in a field of spot- 
less azure. In the farness of the distance the 
cold, white peaks of the Stony mountains warm 
for one supreme moment in the solemn beauty 
of the after-glow, their summits clear-cut against 
the rainless blue. 

Rapidly the shadows deepen. Violet changes 
to leaden hues, rose dims to pearl gray, the 
flushed white foreheads pale, the fires of sunset 
burn out, and the short twilight, ending in gloom, 
is the day's burial. 

Human phantoms flit across the dusky spaces. 
King and priest, savage and Christian, knight 
and lady, shadows all, passing within the mighty 
shadow. Under the low window I hear the 
tramp of feet pacing to and fro like the ebb and 
flow of the tide. The hurrying feet are ghost- 
like, too, chasing the flying specters' gold and 
fame. History is but repeating itself. The rest- 
less, dissatisfied souls of the New World are the 
same brotherhood as those of the Castiles; the 
same as when Solomon sent ships from Tarshish 
to bring back gold of Ophir ; the same jealous 
souls as when the king was wroth because the 
people shouted, Saul has slain his thousands and 
David his ten thousands. Now, as then, morn- 
ing and evening bring their old beauty, the cool-^ 
ing balm of the breeze follows the burning day. 
The west wind cools no fever of heart or brain ; 



140 The Land of the Pueblos. 

still are men searching for signs of gold and 
fighting the old battle against oblivion, and still 
do loving women sit by solitary fires and wait for 
them to come. These things have not changed ; 
they will never change. Humanity remains the 
same. 

The foreign charm which was the dower of the 
historic city is dying fast, but not quite dead. 
The spell, long lingering, is slow to pass away, 
though student and antiquary are blowing the 
dust from the books of Chronicles and letting 
the white light of day into obscured and dark- 
ened chambers. 

In this dimness once glowed the poetic coloring 
of romance and chivalry, in which the valorous 
Espego and his knights founded the City of Holy 
Faith. If the ghosts of the venturesome heroes 
revisit the field of their victories, they may yet 
be reminded of soft Andalusia. There is a hint 
of Castilian grace in the vanishing sombrero, in 
the folds of the ever-falling but never-fallen rcbosa, 
a touch of passing sweetness in the prolonged 
adios. Blent with the familiar benediction, now 
in my ear, "■ Vago listed con Dios que listed lo pase 
bieti'' C' May you depart with God and continue 
well "), the hovering shades might hear the 
dreamy plash of bright fountains and the light 
love song under the barred windows of fair 
Cordova. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE JORNADA DEL MUERTO. 

Near the southern boundary of New Mexico 
the Spanish explorers were opposed by a barrier 
of all on earth most to be dreaded — a shadeless, 
waterless plateau, nearly one hundred miles long, 



The Joimada Del Muerto. 141 

from five to thirty miles wide, resembling the 
steppes of Northern Asia. Geologists tell us this 
is the oldest country on the earth, except, per- 
haps, the backbone of Central Africa; at least 
the one which has longest exhibited its present 
conditions, the one longest exposed to the influ- 
ence of agents now in action, and. hence, bearing 
the most deeply-marked records of their power. 

The portion I speak of appears to have served 
its time, worn out, been dispeopled and forgotten. 
The grass is low and mossy, with a perishing 
look — the shrubs, soap-weed, and bony cactus 
writhing like some grisly skeleton; the very 
stones are like the scoria of a furnace. You 
vainly look for the flight of a bird, such as 
cheered the eyes of Thalaba in the desert; no 
bee nor fly hums the empty air; and, save the 
lizard (the genius of desolation) and horned frog, 
there is no breath of living thing. 

Certain tribes of Arabia have no name for the 
sea, and, when they first came to its shore, they 
asked, with a sad wonder : '• What is this strange 
desert of water, more beautiful than any land ? " 
Standing on the edge of the measureless waste, 
which is trackless as water, the first explorers 
might ask: " What is this strange ocean of sand, 
with its stillness more awful than any sea? " 

In places the dead level of the plain sweeps 
with the exactness of a sheet of water, encircling 
as with a shore-line mountain-walls which on the 
west shut off the Rio Grande, and frequently 
insulating whole peaks and ridges. Friendly 
showers fall there two months in the year, and, 
instead of storms of rain, in spring it is burned 
by those of dust and sand They are caused by 
winds coming mainly from the northwest, carry- 
ing before them, like mist, clouds of pulverized 
sand and dust, and piling them in drifts when 
checked in their course. You can watch their 



142 The Land of the Pueblos, 

progress as they approach, beginning in a thin 
haze along the horizon, for hours beforehand ; 
and when they reach you the dust penetrates 
everything. You eat it, you drink it, you breathe 
it, you wear it Hke a coating, and the last hand- 
kerchief at the bottom of the box in your trunk 
is gritty and smells of alkali. The sand-storms, 
as they are called, usually last one, sometimes 
three days. Occasionally they appear a proces- 
sion of whirlwind columns, such as are seen in 
autumn leaves, slowly moving across the desert 
in spectral dimness. Rejoice and be thankful if 
the tempest passes without striking. It will beat 
the mules without mercy and lash your face like 
a whip, if it reaches you. 

Stories are told how, after a day of intense heat 
and lifeless silence, a dark cloud rapidly lowers 
from the sky of molten brass, and a sudden wind 
whirls the sand in mounds, and so shifts it from 
place to place. Horses and mules fall flat, with 
their noses to the ground; men lie down under 
blankets, from which the sand must be shaken 
occasionally, to escape being literally buried 
alive. Storms of such violence are rare, but every 
old frontiersman can tell you of more than one. 
The early Spaniards called the desert hot wind 
soiana, in memory of Mancha and Andalusia. It 
heats the blood terribly, produces the utmost dis- 
comfort and nervous irritation. Hence the Cas- 
tilian proverb: ''Ask no favor while the solana 
blows." 

A variation of the simoom of the Orient, it 
cracks the skin, creates consuming thirst, and has 
been known to produce death. 

The reader need hardly be reminded that the 
destruction of Sennacherib's host is supposed to 
have been caused by the simoom. Undoubtedly, 
Byron had it in mind when he wrote the Hebrew 
melody, which has the majestic thunder-roll of 
organ music, 



The Jornada Del Muerto. 143 

" The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold." 

Once feel the parching, torrid heat; once face 
that suffocating desert-wind, and you readily 
comprehend death was instantaneous. There 
was no waste of miraculous force in the power 
which destroyed all the mighty men of valor, and 
the leaders and captains, in the camp of the king 
of Assyria 

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathecl in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their"hearts but once heaved and forever grew still." 

The spot I am trying to describe is the battle- 
ground of the elements. In winter it is made 
fearful by raging storms of wind and snow. 
There men and animals have been frozen to 
death, their bodies left the lawful prey of the 
mountain wolf. From the primeval years the 
Apache has harried the hungry waste, hunting 
for scalps; and, besides the savagest of savages, 
it is now the favorite skulking-place of outlaws, 
an asylum for fugitives escaping justice in old 
Mexico and Texas. 

In our times many a party cut off and many a 
traveler murdered makes good the name it bears, 
given by the first white men who dared its perils : 
Jornada del Muerto — "Journey of Death." 

Reports of sun-scorch and lava beds, sand, 
sirocco, maddening thirst, and cheating mirage 
did not daunt the bold land-robbers from Spain. 
They were pledged to wrest their secrets from 
the mountains, and bring them to lay at the feet 
of their imperial master. Disciplined in the 
hardships of foreign wars, they lived for glory 
and worshiped Fortune. They had seen service 
in almost every clime. Some had tilted with the 
Moor; some had fo-jght the infidel on the blue 
Danube, and hunted the Carib in Hispaniola; 
and later came captains whose waving plumes 
had been the colors to rally on when the royal 



144 1^^^^ Laftd of the Pueblos. 

standards were fallen. The mysterious country, 
mountain-locked and guarded by savage sentinels, 
who seemed to require neither rest, food, nor 
sleep, and were so fleet of foot they could out- 
march the best cavalry horses, was a high stake, 
involving heavy risks and not to be lightly won. 
From accounts of Jesuit missionaries, who went 
with the cross, ready to die for their faith, the 
heroes of the seventeenth century learned that 
Nature in Nueva Espagiia was not always in 
stormy mood. The fiery solana spent its strength 
in three days, and the lull following it was like 
clear shining after rain. If the snow of winter 
was deep, it was not lasting (only a Christmas 
storm) ; and friendly natives taught them that the 
stony Sierras could be brought to yield gold, 
silver, copper — all the precious metals. 

Along their sides were sparkling springs, and 
at their feet green valleys, where Summ.er nestled 
long and lovingly — pastitras in which an abiding 
June encamped and ruled the year. They were 
tufted with the short, delicate buffalo grass^ lovely 
with its strange clusters of pistillate flowers and 
bunches of rosy stamens, and so strongly and 
closely matted it could well bear the tread of the 
monstrous Cibola (buffalo). Over all, like the 
purple mountain veils, threaded with fire, hung 
a delicious mystery. 

The old-time heroes were deeply superstitious 
and well versed in legendary lore. As they 
penetrated the Jornaday spectral illusions haunted 
them. Demons lurked in the tall soap-weed, 
and glared over their tops, grimacing threaten- 
ingly. 

When, weakened by long fastings, the sky 
spun round, goblins, " with leathery wings like 
bats," filled the air, and foul fiends, which could 
be exorcised only by prayer, made every step a 
terror. Fearless leaders, who regarded enterprise 



The Jorvada Del Muerto. 145 

ill proportion to its peril, and had 
looked death in the face as if they loved it, 
quailed before the undiscovered country, the 
pathless Jornada. 

In bivouac at sunset, there was much crossing 
of forehead and breast, murmur of aves and 
amens ; not whispered, but outspoken, as became 
the " Swords of the Church." 

They set up their swords in the sand, knelt 
before the blessed sign on their hilts, and fervently 
prayed the Holy Mother's protection. So com- 
forted, they slept, perchance to dream of cool 
fountains in far plazas ; of glassy ponds, with 
white-breasted swans asleep among the reeds and 
rushes on the margin ; of rushing books, shaded 
by dripping willows ; and the low undertone of 
of the halcyon sea, whose soft-beating surf breaks 
on the shores of old Spain. 

It is amusing to read of their superstitious 
dread of horned frogs, which hopped out of the 
way, then '' turned and faced them with basilisk 
eyes." The sameness of the scenes was sicken- 
ing ; the glare of the fierce sunshine blinded 
them ; and, with cracked lips and burning eyes 
they hailed the mirage with shouts, and, horse 
and rider seeing eye to eye, they dashed away 
for the mocking lake, to curse the cheat and 
thirst the more. 

Traversing the desert is not now what it was 
in the age of fable. The delusions of the past 
vanished with the darkness to which they 
belonged. We are living in better times. Sum- 
mer, winter, moonbeam or starbeam will never 
shine on goblins more. The " leathery wings " 
have floated away from cactus thicket and mez- 
quit jungle ; ghost, fairy, demon, genii all have 
fled into the listening silence. They were 
phantoms following the century of credulity, 
whose foremost man, clear-eyed and conscien- 
10 



146 The Land of the Pueblos. 

tious, aimed his inkstand at the Devil, and whose 
veteran campaigner from the siege of Granada 
went wandering up and down the everglades of 
Florida, seeking an enchanted fountain — an ever- 
flowing spring, of which one draught would 
restore to his war-worn body the freshness of 
youth, and add to his term of life years enough 
to discover and conquer a third world. 

The Jornada still has its alarms ; but men of 
the nineteenth century see no angry eyes in the 
red glow of sunset ; overhead hovers no evil 
spirit of earth or air, under cover of night's blue 
and starry banner. 

The centre of the ninety- mile desert is now 
broken by a watering-place, the cheering oasis 
which relieves the long strain on body and soul. 
In 1 87 1 Major John Martin dug one hundred and 
sixty feet, and struck a sweet, abundant fountain, 
deliciously cool, soft, with a slight taste of 
sulphur. Its depth is forty feet, and the heaviest 
draughts have never lessened the supply. It is 
pumped by a windmill, which the wind some- 
times makes his own ; and the gurgle and plash 
as the stream falls into the huge tanks, is a sound 
in the ear of the traveller sweet as his first hearing 
of the nightingale. Before the well was made 
water was hauled in barrels to the station from 
the Rio Grande, fifteen miles away. The nearest 
fuel at that point is eighteen miles distant. 

At Fort Craig, the southern terminus of the 
solitary place, the modern tourist fills his water- 
kegs and canteens, tightens his cartridge-belt, 
and looks carefully to the condition of his animals. 
The loss of a breast-strap or horse-shoe would 
be a hindrance not easily overcome, and supplies 
of every kind must be carried. The road is 
excellent, and, if there is no accident, the well 
may be reached in one day's journey. Even in 
its best aspect it is entered the first time with 



The Jo7'nada Del Muerto. 147 

forebodings, a vague dread., like pushing out into 
an unknown sea. The sun-glare is so hard to 
bear that night is often the accepted time for the 
mournful crossing. As the sun declines, the 
lonesome dark falls like a drop-curtain. The 
stars flash out ; the sky above, intensely clear, is 
a steel-blue shield, set thick with diamonds. A 
tropic brilliance fills it with a glow like the mild 
twilight of other latitudes, and the moon's splendor 
makes beautiful even the seared and jagged cliffs 
of the Sierra de los Organos. Three thousand 
feet above the level of the river are their shafts, 
pale gray in the silvery light ; masses of granite 
up-heaved in some mighty convulsion, long 
stilled, standing against the rainless blue like 
tombstones over a buried world. 

If there is talk in the ambulance, it is in 
subdued tones. The assumption of cheerfulness 
by humming snatches of old songs is a dreary 
impertinence. Hour after hour we travel in 
silence, unbroken but by the grind of wheels 
plowing through the sandy soil. In answer to 
your utmost listening, you may catch the yelp 
of the red fox, or from the far-off mountain the 
coyote's shrill cry. Sometimes the driver drops 
to sleep, and the wagon stops. Lift the canvas 
curtain, and look out. The soft wind blows in 
even cadence and swell, but meets only the 
hushed night and its burning lights. The Milky 
Way is a solid white gleam, where the invisble 
gods are walking. The missing stars are here. 
How low they swing in their serene and silent 
spaces. Beneath the solemn grandeur of the 
heavens, the work of Him in whom is no haste, 
no rest, no weariness, no failure, we bow in awe. 
What a little speck is our wagon-train ; what an 
atom is self, the object round which our weak 
thoughts revolve. 

The mountain-rim is restful to the sight. 



148 The Land of the Pueblos. 

There are the gushing springs, cool as snow ; 
and the shady pines, \yhose never ceasing song 
we cannot hear. How still it is ! No ripple of 
water, no stir of leaf or bough, grass or blossom, 
or any green thing. Ominous crosses by the 
wayside mark the graves of travellers, scalped, 
tortured, and mangled. The weight of the 
tragedy is on us. We feel a near kinship to the 
sleepers below, and would not tremble to see 
them rise and shake their gory locks at us. The 
vacant space lies stark and unmoved, as it lay 
centuries ago, when the first gold-hunters, in 
fear and yet in triumph, braved its unknown 
depths. The prostrate plain, the rigid outlines 
of the naked landscape, the intolerable dumb 
lifelessness are indeed dd Mtierto. 

And here I pause to describe the weapons used 
by wild tribes of Indians who infest the Jornada. 
On my wall, beside a victorious banner furled 
and bruised arms hung up for monuments, are 
the full equipments of an Apache chief, killed 
near Fort Stanton, New Mexico. The shield, 
made of thick, tanned buffalo hide, is stiff and 
hard, and resounds under your knuckles like a 
drum. In being made it was stretched over a 
light frame of basket-work and dried. It is 
twenty inches across, and as round as the shield 
of the elder Ossian. 

An outer cover of dressed deer-skin envelops the 
buffalo hide, drawn smooth and gathered round 
the edge on the under side with a leather thread. 
Traced in blue-black ink on it are round figures, 
which may represent the sun or a spring, and 
zigzags, which by straining one's fancy may be 
imagined to represent mountains. 

At the upper rim of the shield are the decora- 
tions; three pea-fowl feathers, probably amulets, 
and a medicine-bag of black muslin containing a 
dry powder which the warrior rubs on his heart 



The Jornada De^ Muerto. 149 

beiore going into battle, '' to make it big and 
brave." 

A scrap of iridescent shel) is fastened to the 
centre, and there on occasion, and around the 
edge, dangle bloody tufts, the reeking scalps of 
the enemy. It was carried on the left arm by 
two straps slipped over the hand, and was kept 
in motion while in action, by which means the 
hostile arrows glanced off. 

But it was not proof against the mightier arms 
of the white race, and two bullet-holes through 
the shield show how the red chief came to his 
death. 

The spear is an ugly weapon six feet long, 
about as thick as a broom-handle, and made of 
an extremely light wood, to me unknown, painted 
red in one band three inches wide near the head. 
The point is a piece of iron, probably an old 
Mexican bayonet, twenty-two inches long, 
socketed into the pole, and further strengthened 
in its place by a cord of deer-skin wrapped tightly 
round it many times. 

Before Indians knew the use of iron, the spear, 
or lance, as it is usually called, was pointed with 
obsidian, or some other flinty substance, ham- 
mered and ground to a sharp edge. Sometimes 
the heel of the shaft is balanced with eagle 
feathers, while others are caught along the shaft, 
giving steadiness to the flight and gratifying the 
taste of the owner. 

The quiver is twenty -seven inches long, is 
made of white cow-skin tanned with the hair on, 
sewed with a thread of deer-skin, and is large 
enough to contain a sheaf of two dozen arrows. 
A fringe of the same material dangles at each 
end of the quiver and adorns the waist-belt> 
When it was in use a band of cow-skin, four 
inches wide, held it across the shoulder. 

The arrows are shafts two feet long, made of 



150 The Land of the Pueblos. 

a species of yucca, tipped with hoop-iron and 
old knife-blades, which are roughly ground on 
each side, sharply pointed and edged, probably 
by rubbing with stone. They are winged with 
three feathers of the wild turkey, stripped from 
the quill and tied round the shaft at equal dis- 
tances with very fine tendons, like the E violin 
string. The iron points are all that betray in- 
tercourse with white men, and were probably 
stolen from the refuse of some camp. 

An Apache boy, of ten or twelve years of 
age, will strike a cent three times out of five at 
a distance of fifteen yards. Practice of bow- 
shooting begins as soon as these boys are old 
enough to hold the weapon, and ends only with 
death. 

At fifty yards the well-ponted iron arrow is 
dangerous and sure, and the strong-armed In- 
dian easily drives it through a two-inch plank. 
He can fire it more rapidly than an ordinary 
revolver, and even though he possesses **a heap 
firing-gun," as he calls a repeating rifle, he is 
never without the silent, unerring and deadly 
iron-headed arrow. 

It is far superior to the gun for night-sur- 
prises and taking off sentinels, and on the hunt 
half-a-dozen animals may be killed before the 
rest of the herd are alarmed. It is to be re- 
lied on when ammunition fails, and so light as 
to be worn without the least encumbrance. 

The wary Indian is careful of his arrows, al- 
though he has many, wasting none in random 
shots, and keeping his quiver well filled. 
Sometimes a thousand arrows are buried in 
the grave of a chief, a sign that his death will 
be avenged by his tribe. 

A narrow band of red on the feathered end 
of the shaft is the only attempt at ornamen- 
tation. 



The Jornada Del Muerto. 1 5 1 

A fringed leather arm-guard, or bracelet, is 
worn round the left wrist, to defend it from the 
blow of the bow-string. Sometimes it is made 
of gray eagle feathers and the vari-colored tips 
of humming-birds' wings. 

In shooting-matches the contest is carried 
on by men and boys ; betting is high and 
exciting, and sometimes entire fortunes such 
as a pair of moccasins, a pink calico shirt and 
blanket, are staked upon the hazard. The 
whole tribe, men, women and children, turn 
out as spectators. A bad shot is received 
with yells of derision, though failures by ex- 
perts are rare. Tf the slender white wand 
aimed at is not touched, the shaft generally 
lodges in the circle of loose earth thrown up 
about the target to catch the arrows and pre- 
vent their blunting. 

Said an old frontiersman to me, "I have 
never yet seen the Indian bow I could not 
break across my knee." I doubt if he could 
crack the one now before me. Many a hand 
has tried to string it and failed, completely as 
the suitors in the classic story. It is of Osage 
orange forty-two inches long, bent in the 
graceful curvature poetry assigns to the bow 
of the god of love. 

Formerly to this ornament the wild tribes 
added a mighty war-club of mezquit wood, flat 
and crescent-shaped, with a round ball at the 
end. 

In all the Indian weapons there is no sense 
of grace in outline, except the curved bow, no 
elegance in the winging, no brilliance in the 
rough stains of poor color. They simply 
mean business ; the effect of the group now 
before me is savage in the extreme. 

Arm the warrior with them, mount him on 
a half-wild mustang which he guides with the 



152 The Land of the Pueblos. 

knee, and he is a king of men. Place on his 
neck as a crowning garniture the ornament 
taken from the body of the fallen chief, and 
round his neck put a piece of doubled horse- 
hide, with two rattle-snakes' tails, each con- 
taining eleven rattles dangling from it. 
Imagine the brutish face painted in hideous 
stripes, vermilion and blue ; the buffalo-robe 
blanket, the wild hair flying, the long lance 
whirling, brandished in air, and add, if you 
can, the war-whoop, a yell — 

—"As if the fiends from heaven that fell 
Had pealed the banner cry of hell." 

Then you will have a picture of an Apache 
Indian. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SOMETHING ABOUT THE APACHE. 

The chase is the natural outlet for much 
savagery ; but the wild tribes of North America 
are more hardly driven now than ever before, 
owing to the rapid disappearance of game, espe- 
cially the buffalo. Time was when the cibola, as 
they called him, fed, warmed, and clothed the 
nomads. Indians are now moved about as far 
west as they can go, and the buffalo goes with 
them, but is disappearing much more rapidly 
than the Red Man is. 

The narrowing limits of his range make many a 
chase barren as that of the English party in the 
Catskills, gayly hunting the great American 
bison in the Summer of 1876. 

He once ranged as far east as the Atlantic 



Something About the Apache, 153: 

seaboard in Virginia and the Carolinas. From 
Catesby we learn that, about the year I7i2,herds 
of buffalo were seen within thirty miles of 
Charleston, South Carolina. The decrease of 
their main reliance for food and clothing alarmed 
the tribes years ago ; and in the last generation 
they brought forward the fact in their pow-wows 
with commissioners : "The cibola is dying, and 
the red brother must keep peace with the pale 
face, and eat his spotted buffalo." (Indian for 
domestic cattle.) Such was the peaceful and 
alluring speech of the war chief of the Apaches ; 
but the promise of peace was never kept. To 
steal and murder, and, under the show of friend- 
ship beat out the brains of unsuspecting men ; 
to carry off to captivity worse than death the- 
women and larger children, was merely a question 
of opportunity. 

The ''spotted buffalo of the white brother" 
is hardier than the ancient and lawful game which 
ranged in such vast herds along the Arkansas,. 
Republican and Platte Rivers, and the future 
geographers will not regale ingenuous American 
youth with that blood-curdling, hair-whitening 
picture of the shaggy and ferocious beasts rush- 
ing to suicide over an awful precipice overhang- 
ing a bottomless abyss. The bison will rather 
tike his place in natural history with the extinct 
d3do and the out-going cassov.^ary. 

The tanned skin of the buffalo is the best 
material for the manufacture of " tepes," and the 
*' bois de bache " is as good fuel as the Indian 
desires. It has been erroneously stated that only 
the white man kills and wastes buffalo. They are, 
or have been frequently killed by war parties, 
who take what may be needed as food ; but the 
rest of the carcass falls to the portion of wolves 
and ravens, never far off. Young buffaloes fall a 
prey to the hungry gray wolf and coyotes, and 



154 The Land of the Pueblos. 

a sick or wounded buffalo has a long train 
attendant of wolves, thirsting for his blood. 

Coronado, the old Spanish explorer who crossed 
the Gila in 1540, wrote a curious and accurate 
description of the cibola, of which I copy a por- 
tion : ** These oxen are the bigness and color of 
•our bulls ; but their horns are not so great. They 
have a great bunch upon their fore shoulders, and 
more hair upon their fore part than on their 
hinder part; it is like wool. They have, as it 
•were, a horse's mane upon their back-bone, and 
much hair and very long from the knee down- 
ward. They have great tufts of hair hanging 
down their foreheads, and it seemeth they have 
beards, because of the great store of hair hang- 
ing down at their chins and throats. The males 
have very long tails, and a great knob or flock 
at the end ; so that, in some respects, they resem- 
ble the lion, and, in some, the camel. Their 
masters have no other riches or substance; of 
them they eat, they drink, they apparel, they 
shoe themselves ; and of their hides make many 
things, as houses and ropes ; of their bones they 
make bodkins ; of their sinews and hair, thread; 
of their horns, maws and bladders, vessels ; and 
of their calf skins, buckets, wherein they draw 
and keep water." 

The whole living of the roving tribes is thus 
cut off with the buffalo. The Apache love of 
meat is not fastidious, and they are fond of mule 
and horse flesh. Deer, antelope — whatever the 
game may be — every portion, except the bones, 
is consumed, the entrails being an especial 
delicacy. They partially cook it, generally eating 
it extremely rare ; that is, about half raw. 
Fertile valleys in the territories bear a small 
proportion to the extent of arid deserts, lava 
beds, and plains of sand. Isolated peaks contain 
wood and springs, thus affording protection for 




Navajo Indian with Silver Ornaments. 



Somethmg About the Apache. 155. 

the sure-footed savage, who can outmarch our 
-"st cavalry horses. The scant grass is soon 
exhausted, so he must move from place to place, 
or starve, and thus necessity is added to inclina- 
tion ; and they roam over immense tracts of 
country, seeking what they may devour. 

They have smoke signals by day and fire 
beacons at night, and systems of telegraphy 
understood only by themselves. The displace- 
ment and overturning of a few stones on a trail, 
or a bent or broken twig, is a note of warning 
like the bugle call to disciplined troops. They 
cross the Jornada del Mucrto, ''journey of 
death," as the ninety mile desert was called by 
the Spaniard, with an ease and fleetness no white 
man can imitate, and, swooping down from 
refuges in the natural fortresses of the mountains, 
pounce upon the travelers. The many crosses 
dotting the roadsides of Southern Arizona and 
New Mexico mark the graves of murdered men ; 
indeed, the country seems one vast graveyard, if 
we may judge by the frequency of these rude 
memorials. Trained by their mothers to theft 
and murder from childhood, they are inured to 
all extremes of heat and cold, hunger and thirst. 
They are cunning as the red fox and insatiate 
as tigers, so ingenious in preparing for surprises 
that they will envelop themselves in a gray 
blanket, sprinkle it carefully with earth, to 
resemble a granite bowlder and be passed within 
a few feet without suspicion. Again, they will 
cover themselves with fresh grass, and, lying 
motionless, seem a natural portion of the field, 
or hid among the yuccas, they imitate the 
appearance of the tree, so as to pass for one of 
the plants. 

Three-fourths of the Apache country consists 
of barren volcanic rocks and sterile ridges, 
where no plow can be driven and no water 



156 The Land of the Pueblos. 

found, and campaigning in their country is 
'exposure to severe privations and dangers, 
aside from the attacks of the natives. There 
is no hope of glory to cheer the soldier who 
upholds our flag in that dreary field ; there is 
no stimulus but duty. If he succeeds, the 
feeblest echo reaches the ears of friends in 
the states ; scant mention is made in the pa- 
pers ; there is small honor in killing an Indian, 
still less in falling before one. And the work 
is endless, fruitless. It is to be recommenced 
every Spring, and as regularly stopped in the 
Fall by the snows of Autumn. A passing in- 
terest is roused ; but it is brief, because the 
atrocities are so frequent and monotonous ; 
always the same tale of insult, torture, death ; 
and every year the same inquny is made at 
Washington, and runs along the frontier. What 
can be done with the Apaches ? 

They should be exterminated, you say. 

Yes, dear reader; but, unfortunately for our 
gallant army, extermination is a game two 
•can play at. 

Very few know, or care to know, that in the 
Apache War, ending October, 1880, more than 
four hundred white persons were scalped and 
tortured to death with devilish ingenuity. The 
war began on account of the removal of about 
four hundred Indians from their reservation a'- 
Ojo Caliente (warm springs). New Mexico. 
This is the ideal of a happy hunting ground. 
Standing on the parade ground at Fort Craig, 
you look toward the Black Range mountains, 
clad in pine groves, abounding in game and the 
precious stones so rare in New Mexico and 
Arizona. Morning and evening wrap them in 
aerial tints of surpassing loveliness ; and one can 
well imagine such a spot would be very dear 
to any one calling it home, be his color what it 



Something About t/ie Apache. 157 

may. \\^hen the news came, the Indians re- 
ceived the announcement with deep grief and 
bitter curses. The reason assigned by our 
Government for the removal from this spot to 
the arid, volcanic mesa of Arizona was that 
two agencies might be consolidated, and the 
expense of maintaining them lessened. They 
went unwillingly, because this beautiful coun- 
try was the land of their fathers, and because 
they could not live peaceably with the Indians 
of the San Carlos reservation, and only at the bay- 
onet's point would they march. Their war chief 
was Victorio, successor to the renowned Magnus 
Colorado, who was the most influential and 
successful statesman and warrior the Apaches 
have had for a century. They left Ojo Caliente, 
with its green fields and glorious mountains, 
in the Spring of 1877. In September, of the 
same year, Victorio and his people stole away 
from San Carlos, saying they would rather die 
than live there. They were pursued by our 
cav^alry, overtaken, and several of them killed ; 
many women and children were taken prisoners. 
The rest under Victorio, escaped, went to Fort 
W^ingate, and surrendered. They were sent back 
to Ojo Caliente, and held as prisoners of war 
until the order came from Washington for them 
to return to Arizona. Then they stole the 
cavalry horses and started on the war-path. 

The war was a series of ambuscades and re- 
treats, lasting a year and a half. The details 
of Indian fighting are much the same every- 
where ; but Apaches surpass in cunning, 
stratagy, secrec}^ all the sons of men. They 
are an enemy not to be despised, and as friends 
are never to be trusted. Their signal s}'stem 
is so perfect that by it they act in perfect 
concert, and bands of fives, tens, and twen- 
ties, separated from each other by twenty, 



158 The Land oj the Pneti'ios. 

thirty, even forty miles, manage to maintain 
a perfect police intelligence over the vast 
region once their own territory. 

Victorio had one son named for the man 
who, beyond all men of the civilized and 
even savage world, has had the confidence of 
his kind, Washington ; the one white man 
Indians admit to a place in their land of happy 
spirits. He was shot near Fort Cummings, 
and his death was a heavy blow to the chief, 
whose fame and blanket he was to inherit, 
whose pride was centered in his son. In the 
Fall of 1879, Washington's body lay un- 
buried in the deep defile where he fell ; the 
long hair matted and dried with blood, the 
flesh shrunken and skin tanned like old leather. 
In the dry, dewless air of New Mexico, bod- 
ies are not subject to decay as in the East, 
and will shrivel like a mummy by exposure 
to sun and wind. Long before this time the 
flesh of the chiefs son has probably been 
gnawed clean from the bones by the ravening 
mountain wolf 

Washington had but one wife, contrary 
to the usual custom of his tribe, and at twenty, 
wooed and won the ''Princess," as we used to 
call her, because she was of the royal family 
of the illustrious Magnus Colorado. She was a 
comely damsel, very young, who assumed some 
dignity and state because of her high blood, and 
she never forgot the ancient splendors of her line. 

Victorio and his band were surrounded and 
killed in the Castillos Mountains of Mexico, by 
troops under General Terassas (Mexican), and 
the war ended with a grand parade in the city of 
Chihuahua. Cathedral bells rang, bands played, 
and the victorious column marched the street 
amid rousing cheers. Following General 
Terassas and his command came prisoners, 



Something About the Apaches. 159 

women and children on mules and ponies; they 
were to be given away and find homes among their 
conquerors. Behind them were seventy-eight 
Mexicans, carrying poles twenty feet high, on 
which were scalps dangling like waving plumes. 
The whole head of hair was torn off instead of 
one tuft, and the slayer of Victorio, a Farhumara 
Indian bore aloft with pride a pole on which 
hung the gray scalp of the dead chief. At sight 
of it the cheers of the Mexicans were redoubled, 
and I could but think so barbaric a procession is 
rarely seen in one of the oldest and wealthiest 
cities of the North American Continent. There 
was great cause for rejoicing; the bravest and 
wiliest of the Apaches was dead, and he had no 
son to succeed him, for with Victorio's death the 
cause was lost. His wife cut off her hair, as the 
old Greek wives used to, and buried it, an offer- 
ing to the spirit of the fallen chief to whom 
she was devoted, yet said to be less slavish than 
most Indian wives. 

Victorio's band were all stout fighters and 
dtvilisli when under the influence of whiskey or 
tisiuin, an intoxicating drink made from corn. 
One of them, Rafael, split his child's head open 
with an ax, when drunk ; another time stabbed 
his wife so that she died. He was then over- 
come by penitence, sacrificed all of his beads 
and most of his clothes to the dear departed, cut 
his and children's hair short, and sheared the 
horses' manes and tails. These manifestations of 
anguish over, he went up into a high hill, and 
howled with uplifted hands. That shape, out- 
lined against the intense azure of the sky, was a 
most ridiculous sight. The funeral dirge was a 
long, slow, horrible wail. There is no Apache law 
to touch suph a criminal; and this case is less dis- 
tressing than one other which came under my 
notice in New Mexico. An old Indiap. bought a 



i6o The Land of the Pueblos. 

young girl of her mother, paying her price in 
ponies and blankets — much against her will — 
she, like a sensible girl, preferring a younger 
man. She ran away, and hid in dark canons and 
pine woods, but the bridegroom tracked her and 
beat her on her head with his gun for running 
off; and, worst of all, her mother thought the 
son-in-law was exactly right in the matter. 
Finally, when her skull was nearly broken, her 
spirit was entirely gone, and she yielded to the 
inevitable, as so many women of the higher 
grade have done, and silently took up the heavy 
burden of life alotted the wife of the most bar- 
barous of barbarians. Women are of so little 
account with these people that few of their 
daughters are given a name, and even their 
mothers often mourn at their birth, regarding 
them merely as an incumbrance on the tribe. 
They are pretty as children, but the exposure 
and hard work of their lot change them to 
wrinkled, muscular hags at thirty, and when 
they die the Apache chief merely says: *'It was 
only a woman; no loss." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

OLD MINERS. 

Oblivon scattereth her poppies even in 
guarded chambers where the Muse of History 
holds sleepless watch, and the broken, disconnected 
annals of New Mexico in the seventeenth cen- 
tury are like dreamy legends or misty fables of 
the heroic ages. 

The avaricious and despotic governors of the 
province made no secret of their odious laws, 
and apailing atrocities are put on record 



Old Miners. i6i 

in business manner, without concealment or 
attempt at palliation. Many details are trivial 
and there are long catalogues readable by no man 
but Dr. Dryasdust. Running through dispatches 
is an appeal for money, petitions for appropriation 
the keynote of official song, from the Empress of 
India down to the lowest official of the youngest 
republic. How could the commandants open 
mines, develop the resources of Nueva Mejico, 
even with slave labor, without money or its equi- 
valent ? Beside this familiar wail are found 
meager and detached accounts of long marches 
among the peace-loving Pueblos, who hailed the 
fair strangers as gods, and their horses as beauti- 
ful, immortal animals, tamed for the service of 
their celestial visitants. These 

" most Gothic gentlemen of Spain" 

were no believers in the rolling-stone theory. 
We think of them as filled with restless energy ; 
but in a half sheet of ancient MS. I find this 
item, made probably by a peevish Churchman, 
soured because he missed promotion : " Our 
captains were great enemies to all kinds of labor. 
They taught that gold was good for sore eyes 
and disease of the heart. Their desire for it 
was such they would enter into the infernal 
regions and cross the three rivers of hell to obtain 
it." One Captain Salazar, in the Valley of the 
Del Norte, caught a cacique [chief] and chained 
him, to make him tell where certain treasure 
was hidden. After holding the savage in 
confinement several months, the Christian put 
him to torture ; but without avail. "We then let 
him go," said the historian, dryly ; "for the miser- 
able heathen could not tell what he did not know." 
ThebloQdof the Christian of that age ran riot 
with the lust of gold and power ; the two pas- 
sions swaying men of mature years, tempered in 
II 



1 62 The Land of the Pueblos. 

youth by the soft influence of love. It is easy to 
understand that the Pueblo Indians, who were 
making some approaches to civilization in the 
midst of savagery, then wore a yoke to which 
the iron collar of thrall worn by Gurth, the 
swineherd, was light as a lady's necklace. 

History holds no deeper tragedy than the 
record of foreign invasion in North America. The 
man on horseback assumed that slavery was nec- 
essary, therefore right, therefore just ; and by the 
grace of God (which meant the iron hand in the 
glove of steel) he rewarded captains and corpor- 
als with lands wide as whole counties, as yet 
unmapped and unsubdued. His first object was 
to pile high and yet higher the riches which main- 
tained the splendor of his house. The old Cas- 
tilian had the psychic identities of the modern 
one — pride, vanity, intolerance, egotism, hatred 
of labor, and fondness for bloody sports. In the 
irresponsible positions held by the local tyrants 
in Nueva Espagna there Avas boundless sweep 
for gratification of these traits. Whatever was 
not Romish or Spanish they regarded with haugh- 
ty scorn. Adventurers those colonists were, but 
adventurers of no common order. The spirit 
of Crusades was yet alive, and each man felt him- 
self a champion of the Cross, and with his sword 
of matchless temper vowed to strike a blow for 
Holy Church. Conversion was ever a prime ob- 
ject with the Conquistador, The saintly Isabella 
had it always at heart, and one of the latest acts 
of her reign was to commend to the fathers the 
souls of her unbelieving subjects across the sea. 
The fanatic zeal of the padres reached through 
every grade, and the hidalgos gloried in the title 
'' Swords of the Church." The temples of sin, 
as the little mud esttifas, or chapels, of the Indians 
were called, must be leveled, false gods and altcr- 
fires overthrown, and the heathen brought to the 



Old Miners. 1 63 

true faith, under their converting steel. The ear- 
hest revolt of the Pueblos, after the first conquest, 
grew out of the whipping of forty natives, be- 
cause they refused to accept the new religion and 
bow to the hated cross of the unseen God of the 
stranger. 

The early colonists were all miners ; but, ow- 
ing to the care taken in concealments of them by 
the natives, little is left to indicate operations, 
except miles of earth cut into running galleries 
and driven tunnels. Slavery everywhere, when 
applied to field labor, is destructive to human 
life. What must it have been when directed to 
mining, under taskmasters who did not value one 
life at a pin's fee ? 

Even with the aid of science, machinery, and 
the many humanities of the nineteenth century, 
it is still the most melancholy of trades. The 
task of him who ''hangs in midway air" to gather 
samphire is not half so dreadful as work done in 
danger from every element. 

The ruins of a large prison among the placers 
of the Miembres Mountains, abandoned mines 
reopened, and traditions of Indians clearly show 
that the conquered races were treated as though 
they did not belong to the human family. There 
is infinite pathos in the banishment of the un- 
tamed Indian from the free Sierras and the glad 
sunshine to gloomy caverns, where thousands 
were actually buried alive. They were driven 
to toil under the lash and at the bayonets' 
point; in peril from falling walls, deadly gas, 
sudden floods, and the work was done by manual 
labor alone. They broke the rocks with misera- 
ble tools and insufficient light, and mixed the ores 
slowly and painfully with naked feet. Quartz 
was ground in rude arrastres, or mills to which 
men and women were yoked like cattle. Every 
ounce of precious metal was literally the price of 
blood. 



164 ^'^^' Land of the Pueblos. 

So changless are the Spaniard and the Indian 
that the description of a miner near Chihuahua, 
written last year, will do tolerably well for the 
Pueblo of the seventeenth century. Then, as 
now, the Spaniard was the overseer. The peon 
is the slave of to-day. As a rule, Mexicans, 
however intelligent and educated, have no genius 
for machinery. They blow, crush , and drill as their 
fathers did before them, and for transportation 
of ore they prefer a train of mules to a train of 
cars. The miner in the sepulchral shades of San 
Domingo has never heard of crushing-mills or 
cars. A yard-square piece of untanned hide, 
stretched on two sticks, is his wheelbarrow. 
The drill, the pick, the crowbar are his only tools. 
Out of the black door of the mine he steps 
quickly, lightly, though weighted by a sack con- 
taining a hundred and fifty pounds of ore. A 
broad band of rawhide attaches the burden to 
his forehead. He is naked ^ as Avhen he came 
into the world. His neck and limbs are like a 
prize-fighter's. The perspiration streams from 
his sooty face and body, and his breast heaves 
spasmodically. There are no air-shafts, and for 
two hours he has been down in the liydrogen of 
the mine. The path he has travelled, in ascending, 
winds hither and thither ; now up, then down ; 
now in a chamber of whose extent he has no 
conception ; now through a gallery narrow as 
the cavity of a sugar hogshead — so narrow that, 
to bear his cargo through, he must double and 
crawl like a panther ; now along a slippery 
ledge, where the slightest error in the placement 
of a hand or foot is instant death, because on 
one side is an abyss which for the matter of vis- 
ion might as well be fathomless. Now it turns a 
sharp corner ; now it traverses rough masses of 
rocks, which are not all dchris from blasting, for 
some of them have tumbled from the roof, and 



Old Miners. 165 

may be followed by "companion pieces" at any 
moment. Woe to him whom they catch ! Thus 
for more than half an hour the poor wretch has 
come. To such a feat, performed regularly six 
times a day, what is crossing the rapids of Niag- 
ara on a wire? What wonder that the breast 
heaves and the sweat pours ? Have you not 
heard a man escaped from drowning tell of the 
agony thrilling him the instant the life-saving air 
rushed into the cells of his collapsed lungs ? 
Something like that this poor miner and his com- 
rades say they suffer every time they pass the 
door of the mine, suddenly into the rarefied atmos- 
phere of the upper world. Horrible life ! And 
how wretchedly rewarded ! Between mining and 
morals there is no connection, still the question 
comes : Was it for this God gave him a soul ? 

The man's first act, on stepping into daylight, 
is to snatch the little tallow-dip from its perch on 
his head and blow it out. It cost him a claco 
only ; but it was such a friend down in Tartarus ! 
Without it, could he have ever risen to the light ? 
As its glimmer came dancing up the rugged 
way, how the darkness parted before him and the 
awaiting gulfs revealed themselves ! He proceeds 
next to the door of the roofless house. A man 
meets him, helps him unload, takes the sack to 
a rough contrivance and weighs it, giving a ticket 
of credit. Not a word is spoken. They are like 
gliding ghosts. Resuming the emptied sack, the 
naked wretch turns, walks quickly to the entrance 
of the mine, lights the friendly taper, looks once 

"to sun, and stream, and plain, 

As what he ne'er might see again," 

re-enters the rocky jaws, and wades back through 
the inner darkness. Yet he is not alone. He is a 
type. He has comrades whom he will meet on 
the way ; comrades in the extremest pit, wherein 
the sounds of rueful labor are blended with 
mournful talk. 



t66 The Land of the Puehlos. 

The friction of the coming and going of miners 
has poUshed the sHppery floor to glassy smooth- 
ness. With the help of guides, we descended 
the black pit, and deep in the heart of the moun- 
tain sought the men at work. The wretched 
candle each one carried served not so much to 
illuminate our way as it appeared to burn a little 
hole in the darkness. Perspiration fairly rained 
from us ; but we came to see, and pushed on in 
the black solitude, till strength and courage 
almost failed. At last we observed, far off to 
our right, a light dimly reddening the rocky wall. 
Miners at work ! Good ! Just what we came 
for. Slowly, carefully, painfully we drew near 
the beacon. There was no sound of voices, no 
ring of hammers, nor echo of blows. A solitary 
workman was playing the mystic art. He had not 
heard our approach, and we stopped to observe 
him before speaking. A little basket at his left 
contained a few tallow dips and some tortillas 
Close by, in position to illuminate brightly about 
two feet of the wall directly in front of him, was 
his lighted candle. A pile of fine crushed ore, 
the result of his labor, covered the floor to his 
right, and on it lay an iron bar and a pick. 
Above him extended a vault in the darkness 
without limit. He had come there about the 
break of day in the upper world. He came 
alone, and alone he had remained. Not a word 
had he heard, not one spoken. The candles not 
merely lightened his labor : but, since each one 
would burn about so long — a certain number 
exhausting by noon, another bringing the night 
— they also kept his time. The solitude was 
awful ! In the uncertain light the naked, crouch- 
ing body seemed that of an animal. We spoke 
to him. The voice was kindly, yet it sounded 
in his ears, so long attuned to silence, like a 
pistol-shot. He started up in attitude of defense. 



Th'> Neib Miners. 167 

1 Ic may be squatted at the base of the same 
wall to-day. Pity for him, wherever he is ! Pity 
for all of his craft ! '' 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE NEW MINERS. 

The modern Mexican is true to the traditions 
of old Spain — jealous of foreigners, opposed to 
change, ever copying the past. 

There is a legend across the waters that one 
morning, not a great while ago, the glorious 
angel who keeps the keys of the viewless gate 
gave Adam permission to come back and look 
after his farm. Watched by Gabriel, chief of 
the guard angelic, the spirit (oldest of all created, 
yet forever young) dropped through the silent 
starry spaces, among rushing planets and blazing 
suns, numbered only in Heaven, poised above 
the Alps, and looked over Germany. The men 
were smoking meerschaums, drinking beer, and 
talking metaphysics. Disgusted, he fled in swift 
flight toward France. There he saw nothing but 
polite frivolities. The soul of our common 
ancestor was saddened. France was even worse 
than Germany. He did not linger. Taking 
wing while morn still purpled the east, he crossed 
the mountains into Spain, and, resting incumbent 
on air, surveyed the kingdom. One glance across 
it sufficed. The spirit folded his radiant wings. 
"Ah!" he cried, enraptured. "Home again! 
Here all is just as I left it." This old story well 
illustrates the influence of Iberain aversion to 
change, which has been felt wherever Spain has 
had a lasting foothold in the New World. The 
antiquated mining implements of the by-gone 



1 63 Th" Land of the Pueblos. 

generations of New Mexico are the queerest 
things in the world to the Leadviller, used to the 
ponderous quartz mills, driven by invisible power, 
moving like a free intelligence. 

When the mines in the Placer Mountains, thirty 
miles southwest of the City of Holy Faith, were 
in operation, they were worked by the old-fash- 
ioned Spanish arrastre, the rudest, most wasteful 
of mining machines. It consists in nothing more 
than two large flat stones, attached to a horizon- 
tal beam and drawn around by a mule (in the 
days of slavery by men and women), upon a bed 
of flat stones. The process of grinding the ore 
was slow, the amalgamation imperfect, and not 
more than one-third of the gold could be separ- 
ated from the quartz. 

There is good reason for believing that mines 
near Santa Fe were worked in this way before 
Hudson entered the river which bears his name. 
They were probably en bonanza in the years 
when the great Queen, steering the English ship 
through stormy seas, paused amid the breakers 
to listen to the wooing of Robert Dudley. 

The Spaniard in that day mined with stone 
hammers, and it is surprising to us they could 
sink deep shafts with such wretched appliances. 
They were ignorant of carbonates of silver, and 
took nothing but the argentiferous galena from 
the vein, throwing away nine-tenths of the best- 
paying mineral. There is little statistical know- 
ledge of the working of any one mine in this ter- 
ritory, but old Church records are said to show 
that the ten per cent, in tithes collected for it 
amounted to about ten millions. This was real- 
ized from mines adjacent to Santa Fe. In each of 
the ravines running into the Caiiada de las Minas 
(Glen of Mines) more or less of "float" is found. 
This is silver-bearing galena ore, washed from 
lodes crossing the ravines, and is certain indica- 
tion of silver leads in close vicinity. 



Tht New Miners. 169 

In 1846, when Gen. Kearney took possession 
of Santa Fe, nearly all the miners left the placers, 
never to return. Many reasons are giver for 
their hasty flight, one of which is that, being 
Mexicans, they feared impressment into the 
American service, and escaped while they could. 
It is believed that mining operations in the hight 
of prosperity then suddenly stopped, as the 
abandoned and decaying town of Francisco near 
by shows; and but little has since been done to 
revive the business until within the last few 
years. 

Los Cerillos Mines, now being rapidly opened 
up, are in a chain of low conical mountains north 
of the Galisteo, twenty miles from the capital 
city. In these ranges are found syenitic rocks, 
carboniferous limestone and sandstone formations, 
the latter containing coal. They are traversed 
for thirty or forty miles with valuable lodes, the 
veins running from the northeast to the southwest, 
and almost daily fresh "Spanish traces," old 
workings, come in sight, to cheer the heart of 
the prospector. After the rebellion of 1680 the 
Indians returned to their pueblos and submitted 
to the foreign yoke, on condition that mines 
should not be reopened. It would appear the 
treaty was kept in good faith, and that the very 
ancient mines remained untouched during the 
subsequent period of Spanish rule. Some of 
these old diggings in Los Cerillos have been so 
carefully concealed that it requires the keenest 
scrutiny to find them. The shaft of the Santa 
Rosa Mine, on reopening, was found to have been 
sunk fifty-five feet. One shaft is one hundred 
and sixty-five feet to water. How much deeper 
no man can teh. The debris and precious mineral 
were carried up on the backs of peones, and the 
notched cedar trees which were their only ladders 
two hundred years ago are still the means of 



1 -JO The Land of the Pueblos. 

descent to the venturesome traveler, exploring 
the rediscovered galleries. 

The early proprietaries followed no rules in 
prospecting. They were led by whim, or most 
frequently by dreams, the medium of communica- 
tion preferable to the patron saints. The most 
prejudiced observer can not help admiring the 
boldness and energy of their movements. And 
the fields are just as rich to-day. If they paid 
under such feeble, unskilled management, they 
must be much more profitable now, with the help 
of science and delicate machinery. For three 
hundred years and more the sands have been 
washed out at the base of Los Cerillos ; but not 
until very recently have those washing for precious 
grains of metal thought of looking to the source^ 
the core of the mountains, for the best deposits. 
This was the process of experiment and experience 
in the great California Gulch at Leadville. 

In these volcanic hills, still bearing marks of 
the fiery lava flow, are the Montezuma Turquoise 
Mines, which are marvels of deep excavation. 
In one instance half a mountain is cut away by 
Indians of the pre-historic period, in their search 
for the coveted, the priceless chalchuite, the 
Aztecan diamond. 

The tradition runs that anciently the gold and 
silver-bearing ores were borne on the backs of 
burros to Chihuahua, Mexico (six hundred miles 
away), for reduction; that long trains of the 
patient creatures, lean, thirsty, and beaten with 
many stripes, were perpetually coming and going 
along the Valley del Norte, curtaining it with 
clouds of yellow dust. 

It seems a baseless tradition. If the gold- 
hunters could reduce their ores in Chihuahua, 
why not in Santa Fe as well? In 1867 the larger 
portion of El Palacio, then standing, was cleared 
away, and, among many curious relics brought to 



The New Miners. 171 

light, after long burial, was a clumsy smelting 
furnace, thoroughly bricked up on every side and 
worn with long and hard usage. From its ashes 
were taken out bits of charcoal, showing clearly 
that ages ago, time out of mind, the Spaniards 
discovered and used it in smelting their ores. 

The ancient method of washing for silver was 
a very simple process. The operator required 
nothing but a crowbar, a shovel, and a tanned 
skin. This last he fashioned into a water-tight 
basin by stretching it upon a square frame. Fill- 
ing it with water, he stood over it, rocking in it a 
little tub holding sand and grit, from which, 
washed free of clay and earth, he separated the 
worthless pebbles, and selected the valuable par- 
ticles. 

In old ranches through the country we occa- 
sionally see an antique candlestick of beaten sil- 
ver, or a salt-cellar of hammered plata — heirlooms 
proving that in long-gone generations silver was 
found and in quantities. 

Ask how old they are, and the ever-ready 
•* Quien sabe " is the answer. 

From the beginning of the seventeenth till the 
eighteenth century there was a rapid succession 
of rebellions and civil wars, with Santa Fe as 
the field and the important strategic point. In 
1680 the Pueblos allied with the Teguas — 
described as a nation of warriors — and routed the 
Spaniards, driving them from the land as far 
south as El Paso del Norte. 

Another army was mustered and sent up from 
the City of Mexico, but feared to take the offen- 
sive, and for twelve years the land had rest, was 
quiet, as before the foreign invasion. It was in 
this interval of twelve years that the ancient mines 
were hidden. All the old mineral w^orkings were 
covered and carefully concealed, and death was 
the penalty for any who should reveal to white 



»72 The Land of the Pueblos. 

men where precious metals or stones were to be 
found. After 1692 mining in the province was 
abandoned, and to this day it is the rarest thing 
for a Spaniard or an Indian to engage in mining. 
They seem to have torsaken it forever. 

It is said that in the whole compass of East 
Indian literature there is not a single passage 
showing a love of liberty. The millions appear 
created for the gratification of one man. If the 
West Indian be, indeed, his brother, then were 
brothers never so unlike. To the North Ameri- 
can, freedom is the very breath of his nostrils, and 
the degradation of slavery worse than slow tor- 
ture or sudden death. 

In irrepressible yearning for liberty the Pueblos 
escaped from mines, such as I have attempted to 
describe, to inaccessible mountain fastnesses, the 
steeps of distant caiions and hiding-places iia 
dens of animals. How many perished in theie 
realms of silence and despair none but the record- 
ing ange^ can testify. The polished armor of the 
invaders covered hearts hard as triple brass, and 
silken banners floated over knights whose avarice 
was equalled only by their cruelty. The fugitives 
were tracked and hunted down Avith bloodhounds, 
as though they were beasts of prey. 

As has been written of the same tragedy then 
being enacted in Peru : ''It was one unspeakable 
outrage, one unutterable ruin, without discrimina- 
tion of age or sex. From hiding-places in the 
clefts of rocks and the solitude of invisible caves, 
where there was no witness but the all-seeing sun, 
there went up to God a cry of human despair." 
The Bishop of Chiapsa, himself a Spaniard, affirms 
that more than fifteen millions were cut off in his 
time, slaves of the mines. On the Northern Con- 
tinent history is but an imperfect guide. That 
the rich valleys of the Rio Grande and the Pecos 
cnce held a dense population is plainly proved 



The New Miners. vn 

by the ruins of cities slowly crumbling away. We 
have only dim glances into long, dark spaces ; but 
there is light enough to see the conqueror's daily 
walk was on the necks of the conquered natives, 
who swiftly declined to an abject and heart- 
broken race. 

So great was the horror of the first conquest 
that the memory of it has been kept alive through 
ten generations. The Pueblo mother still shud- 
ders as she tells the story of ancient wrong and 
woe to her children ; and the unwritten law yet 
binds the red race to secrecy, and is a hindrance 
in the opening of mines in the territories. 

Princely fortunes were made, and, if tribes, 
whole nations, were swept off the face of the earth ; 
they were but so many heathen less to cumber 
the ground and drag the march of conquest. To 
understand how valueless human life was then, 
look down the steep sides of the old mines reop- 
ened. Rows of cedar pegs serve, you see, as lad- 
ders along the black walls, from the bottom to the 
entrance. Imagine a man climbing up, weighted 
with a sack containing a hundred pounds of ore, 
fastened to his back by a broad band of raw-hide 
across his forehead. The slightest error in the 
placement of hand or foot must miss the hold, and 
the burden-bearer be dashed to pieces ; but it 
could have been no loss, else better means would 
have been provided. There must have been hun- 
dreds at hand to take his place. 

When did Spain stretch forth her hand, except 
to scatter curses ? It is part of my faith, derived 
from the study of history — in fact, it is the great 
lesson of history — that nations are punishable, 
like individuals, and that for every national sin 
there is,' soon or late, a national expiation. Does 
not Spain place the doctrine beyond question ? 
No European power has had such opportunities 
for noble achievement ; yet what good has come 



1/4 The Land of the Pueblos, 

through her ? What grand idea or benign prin- 
ciple, what wholesome impression upon mankind? 
She was the Tarshish of Solomon ; her mines 
were the subject of quarrel between the Roman 
and Carthagenian ; in the day of Christ she still 
supplied the world with the royal metals. Such 
were her resources in the beginning. Afterwards, 
when commerce reached out through the Pillars 
of Hercules and drew the West in under its influ- 
ences, a people of masterful genius, sitting where 
Europe bends down so close to Africa, would 
have stretched a gate from shore to shore and by 
it ruled the earth. 

Yet later she received the gift of the New 
World. Where is the trophy marking her 
beneficent use of the gift? She had already 
ruined the civilization which had its seat in the 
pillared shades of the Alhambra. In her keeping 
were placed the remains of the Aztec and the 
relics of the Incas, only to be destroyed. Drunk 
with the blood of nations, she who ruthlessly 
subjected everything to the battle-ax, the rack, 
and the torch is now dying of slow decay. 

Could the breath blow from the four winds and 
breathe upon the Indians, reckoned by millions, 
who perished under Spanish rule; if their dust 
could but come together, and all those slain live 
again and testify, alas ! for Castelar, wisest of 
visionaries, awaiting the Republic of Europe to 
bring about the resurrection of his country." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE HONEST MINER. 

The man on the frontier who has no speculation 
in his eyes is dead as Banquo. The contagion 
of soul, says the ancient philosopher, is quicker 
than that of the body, and I have yet to see the 
one with soul so dead as to refuse a venture in 
mines, and wholly resist the fever which spares 
neither age nor sex, yet is not fatal or even 
unpleasant. While the craze lasts, it affects the 
brain, quickening the imagination and distorting 
the vision. Under its powerful alchemy discolored 
stones by the wayside become bowlders of ore, 
it seams bare cliffs with veins of gleaming metal, 
plants mines in impossible places, converts vertical 
strata into immense deposits. All the way it 
silvers the dreams of night and lengthens them 
unbroken into the day. Knowledge comes to 
the fever-smitten without study. One glance at 
a lofty mountain-range is sufficient to determine 
if it be metalliferous, and, balancing a lump of 
ore on his gritty forefinger, he can tell its exact 
per cent, of silver. 

The victim of the epidemic carries scraps of 
grimy stuff in his pockets, wrapped in dirty 
cloths, and a small magnifying glass, into which 
he puckers his fevered eyes many times in the 
tv/enty-four hours, and surveys his uncoined 
treasure with doating glances. He unselfishly 
allov/s confidential friends to look through the 
lens, and expects enthusiastic admiration in return 
for the privilege. Unless the confidential friend 
is an enemy in disguise, he will gloat over the 
earthy specimens too. He talks little, if at all, 
apparently in a generous burst of feeling about 

175 



1 76 The Land of the Pueblos. 

bonanzas. En bonanza means literally snioulh 
sailing, a fair breeze, etc. , and is used by Mexican 
miners, applied to exceedingly rich ores or 
"shoots." Free translation, ''booming." His 
voice is pitched in a low key — a loud, impressive, 
I may say distracting whisper. The delirium is 
pleasurable, for the man's hopes are indomitable, 
and a secret trust covers a dark stratum, so to 
speak, of fear ; but he is reticent, grave as though 
his shafts had pierced to the very center of 
gravity. 

The arithmetic man, who loves figures, has 
estimated that in the flush times of Colorado the 
successful were one to every five hundred honest 
miners. He has not brought in returns from the 
territories, and there is, in consequence, broader 
sweep for imagination in the undeveloped regions, 
where mining is yet partly experiment. 

The fortunes of two or three millionaires 
balance the losses of thousands, like the many 
deaths which go to make up a victory. Are you 
the five hundredth or eight hundredth happy 
child of Destiny, the victorious captain for whom 
the unnamed heroes fell ? You ? Of the bonanza 
king we daily hear by telegraph, photograph, 
autograph. Of the vast army of the defeated — 
nothing. Singly they tramp back home, steal in 
darkly at dead of night, ravage the pantry, and, 
having slept off fatigue, are ready to deny having 
thought of Leadville and Golden. 

One of the cheapest and easiest ways of reach- 
ing a mine is by a " grubstake." This euphonious 
word means a certain sum (say one hundred and 
eighty dollars) advanced to a man by another, 
with more money and less time, and the pros- 
pector has an interest in whatever he may find. 
You meet him on every road, every highway, 
every by-way, and where there is no way in the 
territories. The prospective millionaire gener- 



The Honest Aliner. 177 

ally wears an umbrageous hickory shirt, sleeves 
usually rolled to the elbow, exposing arms not the 
fairest, buckskin or brown duck pants, or a ready- 
made suit, ready to be unmade at the seams, and 
a hat of superlative slouch. His head is shaggy 
as a buffalo's, with sun-scorched hair, and his face, 
lined with fierce sunbeat and wrinkling wind, is 
a glossy red, as though it had been veneered, 
sand-papered, and varnished. He carries a strik- 
ing hammer, weighing from five to eight pounds. 
Does it look like an enchanter's rod ? In his 
hand it may prove a fairy wand, potent as the 
double-headed hammer of Thor. His burro, or 
donkey, is not much larger than a sheep, yet able 
to bear three hundred pounds' weight. On the 
patient, long-suffering brute is strapped a blanket. 
Above it are piled rations of bacon, sugar, crack- 
ers, a pick and shovel, and a tin pot for boiling a 
coarse brown powder, called in bitter (very bitter) 
sarcasm coffee. In seeking claims, he is oftenest 
attended by a partner, familiarly and affection- 
ately called " my pard." In this land of sudden 
death, where every man carries pistols and loves 
to use them, one lone prospector may be picked 
off almost anywhere, and his bones left in deep 
canon or lonesome gulch, and no questions asked. 
It is best to hunt in couples. Like the inteUi- 
gent and reliable contraband of other days, the 
honest miner is forever bringing in good news. 
'* Lee is just where we want him !" " The latest 
find is prodigious, the best thing yet, and lacks 
nothing but capital for development to equal any- 
thing in the Comstock Lode or Santa Eulaha ! " 
This last is a mine worth having, where the early 
diggers set no value on common ore, but sought 
•' pockets," rich with silver; a soft yellow clay, 
scooped out rapidly and easily with horn spoons. 
Sometimes they were of immense extent, require- 
ing years to exhaust. 
12 



178 The Limd of the Pueblos. 

I have not been able to learn why the miner is 
always named the honest miner ; but such is the 
fact. To this well-worn adjective are sometimes 
added reticent and successful, when the speaker 
wishes to be unusually impressive. It has been 
written that mining speculations, like transactions 
in horse-flesh, have a tendency to blunt moral per- 
ceptions, and soured politicians insinuate it was 
first phrased by ambitious patriots who were anx- 
ious to secure his suffrage. Be that as it may, 
the honest miner is our man now. Though he 
does not pretend to be a poet, his is the vision and 
faculty divine. He is attended by presences to 
other eyes unseen, like the inspired sculptor, who 
in a heavenly fervor of inspiration hewed the 
rough block of marble by the roadside and let the 
prisoned angel out. By break of day, while the 
warm valley still holds the night in its bosom, he 
is up and on the march. The shadow of a great 
rock or a sighing pine has been his shelter, the 
overarching blue canopy his tent, the world is his 
field. For his unfailing appetite there are crack- 
ers, bacon, and ct)ffee. Like Macaulay's fellow- 
traveler, he breakfasts as if he had fasted the day 
before, and dines as though he had never break- 
fasted. His burro is happy as that melancholy 
beast can be on a little grama grass {y^theronia 
oligistarchori) or twigs and leaves of scrub oak. 
He wanders from the borderline northward, among 
cold, sharp, icy crags, where desolation dwells in 
matchless state; where, among treeless, bald peaks, 
she holds and guards her Paradise, perfect even 
to the grim, painted savage, who, with scalping- 
knife, instead of flaming sword, does the duty of 
the sentinel-angel at the gate. Lava-beds do not 
stop him, nor chaparral, mezquit, or cactus jungle, 
or the pricking *• Spanish bayonet." In wither- 
ing wind, in blinding snow and drifting sand, the 
undaunted fellow pushes his search for rich leads. 



The Honest Miner, 1 79 

Such persistent energy directed to any other bus- 
iness would command success ; but will it in pros- 
pecting? That depends. If he fails in finding 
a good thing (say a lode worth a million or so) in 
a given district, it does not shake his steadfast 
confidence. He makes a new deal, and begins 
again, for he ** is bound to spot the treasure.'' 

The claim-stake is usually a pine board, marked 
with certain inscriptions in pencil, which ooze 
from within glazes over and makes indelible. 
Pleasant and consoling to him is it to know that 
no wise man from the East — no scientist, no geol- 
ogist — has ever found a valuable mine. '* Them 
literary fellows have to take a back seat " when it 
comes to locating a claim. Luck, chance, acci- 
dent, and the prospector are the powers to be 
depended upon then. But when he does strike 
the big lead, and the crumbly ore, with its glitter- 
ing white-and-yellow streakings, is reported inex- 
liaustable, then these wholesome adages floor the 
honest miner. A man cannot see very far under- 
ground. It takes a mine to work a mine. Luck 
may find the lead, but science molds the silver 
brick ; and to these precious truths are added the 
proverb so dear to gentlemen of the profession of 
the renowned Oakhurst : "There's nothing cer- 
tain about luck, except that it's bound to change." 

The old Spaniards had the national love of gam- 
bling — the gambler's unreasoning hope and his 
blind belief in luck. If Fortune frowned to- day, 
she would brightly smile across the green cloth 
to-morrow. If gold is not in this glittering, cheat- 
ing mica, it is hidden elsewhere, awaiting him 
who is bold enough to risk the chances of win- 
ning. The same trait is deeply marked in the 
American of our generation. Mining is a busi- 
ness to. which all other occupations are dull and 
tame. The lumps of soft, blue-looking rock, not 
much harder than clay, streaked and spangled 



J 86 The Land of the Pueblos. 

with shining threads, are dear to the American 
as they were to the Castihan heart and eye. 

A man undertaking a scheme in which the 
odds are five hundred to one against success 
might be considered a simpleton elsewhere ; but 
not so on the frontier. Thousands, armed with 
pretended stoicism, fevered with anxiety, rush 
West, " to look into mines a little," dig deep, and 
find at the bottom of the shaft what the gods of 
Olympus sent as underlying all the ills — Hope. 

It is as certain as the sun rises and sets that the 
gambHng and not the commercial instinct pre- 
dominates in mining transactions. The fascina- 
tion is in the hazard. The spell, so binding 
usually, is not of avarice, but lies in that delicious, 
feverish, intoxicating charm of cliancc. To bor- 
row the words of one who has tried it : " There 
is a dehght in its agony, a sweetness in its insan- 
ity, a drunken, glorious intensity of seitsation in 
its limitless swing between a prince's treasures 
and a beggar's death, which lend life a sense 
never known before ; rarely, indeed, once tasted, 
ever abandoned." 



CHAPTER XX 

THE ASSAYERS. 

A CERTAIN room in El Palacio is devoted to 
assaying the precious ores. Its blackened, 
time-stained rafters look as though they might 
fall any moment; but believers in luck rest in 
calm assurance that the catastrophe will not occur 
in their time. Vainly is the tale told how the 
very day Governor Merriwether took possession 
of the Palace, to assume the executive duties of 
the territory, the roof of the room in which he 



The Assay ers. i8l 

had once been a prisoner fell in. Nobody scares 
at that old story now. The slanting beam over- 
head will not drop till we are out of the way; 
the crumbling adobes will hold together awhile 
yet. No use running till you are hurt. There 
is too much actual danger about us to allow the 
sensationalist a chance to waken fears. 

The mud walls of the room I speak of were 
once papered; but the hanging has flaked off, re- 
vealing the brown ground, making splotches here 
and there, like a disease. Cobwebs of pre-historic 
antiquity hang in lines, like ropes of dirty rags. 
The one north window is obscured by dust and 
fly-specks, the dull panes and deep walls letting 
in a dim and not religious light. It was formerly 
a bedroom, I believe. Of the living things which 
still may burrow in the walls, as the French 
women say, I beseech you to suppose tliem. 
The bare floor is dusty and gritty with sand. In 
one corner is a barrel of charcoal; beside it pine 
kindling and old newspapers. A long pine table 
holds the assayer's tools — the many contrivances 
necessary to his vocation. Scales that weigh 
with the delicate nicety of Portia's, blow-pipes, 
bottles of acids, mortar and pestles, little hammers, 
and sieves, beside waiting specimens, done up in 
muslin, carefully separated and labeled. Such 
stones come in every mail, every train, every 
ambulance, every pocket. "Blossom rocks" 
adorn window-sill and mantelpiece, street-corners 
and counters, serve as paper-weights and door- 
props, and are a stumbling-block and rock of 
offense along the sidewalks. 

I am not here to talk of chlorides, pyrites, 
sulphurets, silica, and manganese ; but only to 
remark, en passmit, that free gold and ruby silver 
are pretty terms — very pretty, indeed — and easily 
understood by any lady in the land. 

At this table presides the refiner and purifier 



182 The Land of the Pueblos, 

of silver — the Man of Destiny. It may be a 
Freiburg professor, with flowing beard and a 
name in harsh discord with the meUifluous Spanish 
titles, or a graduate of a New York school of 
mines. No matter. He understands his business 
and on his fiat hang hopes high as the sky, for to 
him are submitted samples of raw ores believed 
valuable, and now comes the question : Is the 
deposit represented rich enough to justify deep 
digging — in other words, to make a mine of? 
The honest miner's flush of hope and sinking of 
fear are comparable only to the tremor of the 
quivering aspirant for literary fame, who, with 
darling MS. in hand, respectfully addresses the 
torturer, and withdraws to await his doom. 

The small, square furnace glows with fervent 
heat, and the room is suffocating. With, beaded 
forehead and dripping chin, the assayer weighs, 
pulverizes, sifts the fine dust in the cupels, to 
undergo the only sure test, the trial by fire. His 
hidden power revives the old romantic ideas of 
scholars, to whom the ancient and secret science 
of alchemy was a religion, part of the sublime, 
cabalistic wisdom revealed unto Adam, to console 
him for the loss of Paradise ; for which study 
philosophers shut themselves up to lifelong toil 
in cells and caves. He is of the order of mystics, 
who grew lean and pale pondering brass-bound 
volumes of wicked-looking hieroglyphs; who 
understood the charm of the burning belt and 
the ciphered girdle. He deals with strange 
crucibles and subtle compounds; by a wizard 
spell masters the forces of the earth, the 
transmutation of metals, and by magic numbers 
discovers the golden secrets of Nature. While 
the cabala combination is being applied, that 
laboratory is the center of many hopes. 

How often, ah! Jioiv often does it prove the 
gold is dull lead, the silver is become dross. The 



The Assay ers. 183 

waiting miner is " not in harmonization with his 
environments." He hovers about the Palace, 
trying to cover his eager anxiety under the 
studied stoicism of the frontiersman. Sometimes 
the sun looks down upon him, as it rises, and 
finds him a patient watcher, waiting for the cool- 
ing of the metal. He has silently outwatched the 
stars, only to learn that specimens believed very 
rich (his darling promises) are worthless — not a 
speck, not a pinhead of precious mineral to be 
seen in a dozen cupels. What he held was so 
much fairy gold that turns to dust and dross. 

The gold-seeker, in the first chill of disappoint- 
ment, refuses to credit the report; but the re- 
finer's furnace has spoken with tongues of fire. 
There is the evidence of his own senses ; he can- 
not doubt the testimony. He quickly recovers 
his stolid composure, takes a square meal, pos- 
sibly a square drink, and, led by the spirit of un- 
rest, is ready to face the inevitable hardships of 
another long search for rich leads. 

He rises, after an adverse stroke of fate, buoy- 
ant as ever with irrepressible hope — as Dr. John- 
son says of second marriages, "the triumph of 
hope over experience." In the morning the dis- 
appointment seems like something belonging to 
the vanished night. Five, eight, ten years may 
have brought nothing but anxiety, excitement, 
ill-luck; but his superior sagacity and daring 
must win at last. 

Away he goes, with btwro and ''pard," off on 
another prospecting tour, across unmeasured 
wastes of sand, under a brassy sky, over alkali 
plains, lava-beds, and waterless pasturas, which 
lead to springs that may be poison. 

A childish credulity weakens the judgment of 
the honest miner. He accepts without reserve 
the pleasing myths which form a sort of legend- 
ary history; the unwritten annals of gold and 



184 The Land of the Pueblos. 

silver-bearing mountains. Airy fables, poetic 
traditions are received as authentic records. 
There are delightful touches in these tales, with 
which I should love to embellish and enrich my 
page ; but not to-day. They belong to the mys- 
teries and subtleties known only to the elect — 
the chosen few who see behind the cloud spanned 
with promise, iris-hued and glittering, the prize 
awaiting the venturesome Argonaut. 

The pay-streak is possibly in a vega of sea- 
like vastness and level ; but more likely in the 
stony mountain heart, threaded by shining lines, 
as the crimson veins warm ours. Wherever it is, 
he is the man to strike it. And this conviction 
abides with him, a constant happiness, as he tra- 
verses the length and breadth of the mineral 
region. 

Do you laugh at his fond delusions ? 

The mania for precious metals is not a modern 
craze. It is older than the Pyramids. 

Is he chasing a chimera ? 

No, dear reader, he is feeling his way in the 
checkered path which all men at some period of 
their lives have sought ever since the first pros- 
pector groped along the strand down by the 
storied Euphrates, that dim and shadowy river, 
winding between myth and history, which waters 
the old, old land Havilah, where there is gold. 

If a cold-blooded newcomer advises the hon- 
est miner to settle down to some good, steady, 
legitimate business, he rejects the idea with 
lofty scorn. That is well enough for the cautious 
idiot, who does not know a true fissure-vein when 
he sees it. The every-day trades, the tame, 
beaten paths are not in the prospector's line of 
march. He is for the short cut to fortune. 
Familiar with dangers, there is one foe he can- 
not fight. In lone hillsides and desolate caiions 
there is lying in wait for him an enemy more 



The Assay ers. 185 

deadly than the skulking Apache — a pecuHar 
form of intermittent fever, called mountain fever. 
It lurks in the air, ready to lift the dread cloud 
hiding the mystery which forever enshrouds the 
Unseen World. 

The human race is nomadic, and the old Aryan 
blood is strong, and crops out on the vcgas of 
the Rocky Mountains clearly as on the arid plains 
of Mesopotamia. To be sure, in Adam we are 
all one, and he was a quiet citizen of the world. 
In Noah we are all three, and after the Deluge — 
but this is getting into deep water. 

Revenons. Occasionally it happens that a 
sample of ore, *'the queer-looking stuff" on 
which moderate expectation is based, is brought 
out of the furnace, and the button in the cupel is 
not silver, but a lump of pure gold. O raptur- 
ous moment known to the few, the beloved chil- 
dren of Fate ! O day to be remembered under 
the coffin-lid ! The owner of such returns (not 
larger than a pea) treads on air. He tries to 
hide his exultation ; but the secret will out. He 
plans ; he builds. He is going to sail the seas ; 
to start before many days to hear the syrens of 
the Mediterranean ; to visit the abiding-places of 
poetry and history, the lands of undying sum- 
mer : to see the kingdoms of the earth and the 
glory of them. And well may he dream dreams 
and see visions ! Money is but another name for 
freedom. He who holds it has all the world be- 
fore him where to choose his place of rest. 

My reader, familiar with '* The Last of the 
Barons," may remember the picture of Adam 
Warner endeavoring to turn copper into gold. 
In the solitude genius everywhere creates for it- 
self, by night and by day, hanging over the burn- 
ing Eureka, stinting himself and child to feed 
the devouring furnace, asking no sympathy in his 
lonely chamber, living apart with his works and 



lS6 The Land of the Pueblos, 

fancies, like a god amidst his creations, and com- 
ing very near the grand discovery concealed for 
a later generation to penetrate. The fascination 
of mining is what those elder sages experienced 
in a lifelong witchery over minds bent to the 
study of alchemy. What wonder men were de- 
voted to a pursuit, in which even Bacon and 
Newton wasted precious hours, which promised 
results so august? Besides costly chemicals, 
there were thrown into the crucibles youth, 
health, hope, love, yes, life itself, to vanish as 
vapor, slowly, slowly, surely, surely. 

The worst thing about mining, as formerly 
about alchemy, is that it allures on its victims to 
destruction. One gets near and ever nearer 
the object ; so trifling a sum additional will com- 
plete the work and secure the promise. Time, 
toil, expensive appliances are demanded ; but the 
glorious result justifies all these, and many 
another risk more fearful. 

Nature has done in the Rocky Mountains pre- 
cisely what the ancient sages tried to do. Here 
the last secret combination has produced the 
medium ; the striking hammer is smiting the 
rocks ; in the death-like stillness of remote soli- 
tudes the blow reverbates, and at its compelling 
stroke the earth opens, and lo ! the philosopher's 
stone is discovered. Prospero's wand was not 
mightier. 

At night the clear, red glow of the furnace 
reddens the walls of the assayer's room, coats 
with bright gilding gloomy rafters overhead, and 
lends a sickly light to the flickering flame of the 
coal-oil lamp. Then the place is suggestive of the 
great centre of the earth, where doomed souls go 
wandering up and down in a joyless, endless 
wrestling with fire. The sitent men are like dis- 
mal ghosts. If they speak, it is in repressed 
tones. Their low voices, the obscurity of the 



The Assay ers. 187 

room, the intense heat, the air of secrecy and 
mystery give the feeUng that some agony is con- 
ducting — a battle, a fire, a drama involving high 
interests. The mighty cause is a tragedy ; pos- 
sibly a crime. 

Sometimes a woman, a girlish shape, looks in 
with innocent eyes, as though she thought the 
assayer in woeful peril. She flits away like a 
spirit blest, wandering from the cool, sweet fields 
Elysian, to pity for one moment the sad dwellers 
in the near purgatory. 

Souls in torment are here, in fact, when " speci- 
mens" on which star-high hopes were grounded 
prove to be fire-clay and galena, and the long, 
slow dream is as a vision of the night. 

The conduct of some " miner men," after a 
claim has been located, and the one hundred 
dollars' worth of work which the law exacts is 
done, is a study. In this age of doubt and ques- 
tion, their unwavering faith gives us fresh confi- 
dence in skeptical, sorely-tried human nature. 
They gaze into narrow prospect-holes, about the 
size of a seventy-five barrel cistern, with a depth 
of trust, an immovable resting on the promise in 
the future comparable with nothing I know, 
except the serene complacency of the setting hen. 
She feels the stir of life beneath her brooding 
wings, and he has visions 

"impalpable and unperceived 

Of other's sight." 

You see only a hole in the ground ; a shallow 
cistern which holds no water. Nature has re- 
vealed her secrets to him, as she does not to the 
unbeliever. Hence his robust faith. 

From that prospect-hole riches will roll up by 
the bucketful. 

'' How will they get up ?'' asks the uninspired 
tourist, heartlessly. 

Honest miner, teetering a scrap of galena on 



1 88 The Land of the Pueblos, 

his forefinger, stares steadily at the faint 
mountain-Une and murmurs: " Oh ! I must bide 
my time. One of these days capital will come 
along — capital will come along — come along — 
along." 

It must be admitted that capital is often a good 
while on the road. This hour, scores about us 
are prospecting, opening abandoned workings, 
following the ancient Tegua-Spanish traces, with 
hopeful hearts. They are enchanters. Hear 
them talk, and you behold the beauty of which 
they dream. They have neither crucibles nor 
carpet, nor do they pour ink in your palm, as 
Hassan did ; yet are they prophets and seers, and 
their visions all foreshow another Leadville. 

The Lodestone Rocks are not far off. Come 
not near, unless you are ready to be dashed 
against them. 

Only fifty dollars laid out in work, and a mine 
possibly worth thousands. Qtiien sabe? ''Who 
knows ?" ** Who knows ? " 

Taking a stern Methodist view of the business 
as now proceeding in the territories, I should call 
mining a game of chance — exciting, fascinating, 
bewildering — which defrauds no one but your- 
self. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE RUBY SILVER MINE. A TRUE STORY. 

Mining atmospheres are rife with stories, mar- 
velous, startling, that would be incredible, did 
we not know it is always the incredible which 
happens. Of the many tales floating about Santa 
Fe, 1 give one to you, beloved, which shows how 
strangely things come round in this round world 
of OUl'S. 



The Ruby Silver Mines, — A True Story. 189 

The patient reader who has graciously followed 
my rambling, scrambling steps through New 
Mexico may possibly remember that a large 
portion of the MSS. comprising the archives of 
the territory, was sold as waste paper and found 
way into the various shops of the city. Santa 
Fe being the largest town and commercial center 
of New Mexico, from it they were widely dis- 
persed in every direction, and on this accidental 
scattering of leaves hangs my story and a fortune. 

One night in the Autumn of 1879 I sat boring 
myself into inanity over the Pharos of the Occi- 
dent (which is a misnomer, the newspaper being 
anything but light reading), when a visitor was 
announced. 

" Me parece tin miner 0!' said Dolores Lucia 
Marina Feliciana Flores. 

I was pleased at the thought of a visitor, even 
on business, and, in dread of being left alone with 
The PJiaros, insisted el ininero should not be 
interviewed in the Assay Office, but here. The 
'• Palace " halls are neither long nor lofty, being 
the length of two moderate rooms on the ground 
floor, and in a few minutes there stood in the 
deep doorway a figure, as revealed by the shaded 
student's lamp, unmistakably that of a miner. 
His face was sunburnt to a vermeil red and made 
prematurely old by exposure. Wrinkled by dry- 
ing wind and pitiless sunbeat, his appearance was 
weather-worn, showing days of wanderings with- 
out shelter and lodgings on the cold, cold ground. 

The contagion of good manners is a happy 
thing. In Spanish-speaking countries, though 
all else be lacking, there is ever the most 
exquisite politeness, and the man removed his 
slouch of a hat with a profound and sweeping 
bow. His uncovered head was thatched with a 
thick shock of carrot-colored locks, which are 
the inheritance of " the sandy complected," to 



I go The Land of the Pueblos. 

speak after the manner of the poke-berry districts 
of our own Indiana. The strip of forehead 
shaded by his hat was dotted with large, asser- 
tive freckles, which in the exposed portion of his 
face were " in one red burial blent." He closed 
the door carefully and, with an air of secrecy, 
dropped his voice to a certain loud whisper, 
peculiar to sick-rooms and miners in confidence, 
and his whisper gradually sank to the ledger 
lines below, as he made his report ; for, though 
rather untimely, his call was not unexpected. 

I spread The Pharos on my table, and he 
slowly proceeded to unload his pockets and his 
red handkerchief, and empty on the paper 
various ores, kept separate, tied in rags and 
marked. To him they represented all precious 
things, besides gold and silver; to me they 
appeared formless, jagged lumps of dull-looking 
stone. 

The story of the Argonaut was long — too long 
for any but a frontiersman, with plenty of leisure 
to speak and to hear — and was given in the style 
of oratory perfected by the Cousin of Sally Dil- 
lard. 

He could not sit still, but started every few 
minutes, as at a calling voice, and strode hur- 
riedly up and down the room, restless, eager, 
nervous, like one who, after long and exhaustive 
strain, suddenly slackens the tension. With the 
utmost minuteness he gave the history and 
described the locaHty of each particular sample, 
and tied them again, one by one, each in its own 
grimy cloth and label. This done, he hesitated, 
cleared his throat, rose from his chair, apologized 
for trespassing upon our valuable time (as though 
we had anything but time), opened the door, 
looked up and down the hall, as if he feared 
some ear was airing at the key-hole. Satisfied 
with the reconnaissance, he closed it again and 



The Ruby Silver Mines. — A True Story. 191 

with stealthy step returned to the table. Evi- 
dently two hours of rigmarole had failed to free 
his soul. There was something still unsaid. We 
silently awaited the revelation. ♦' There is one 
specimen left," he began, doubtfully, and looked 
at m.e much as to say : Can a woman keep or be 
trusted with a secret ? Perhaps he read 
assurance in my face, for he fumbled in his vest 
(from the Semitic shop hard by, painfully new 
and pathetically cheap), and out of its deepest 
corner produced a little bag of buckskin, tied with 
a leather string. He untied it with nervous 
haste, and his wistful light blue eyes, burned in 
deep hollows with miner's fever, brightened as he 
spoke, scarcely above his breath, in an awe-inspir- 
ing whisper : " Here we air. Here's the richest 
thing yet." Shaking the bag, there dropped into 
the palm of his left hand a reddish purple stone, 
without streakings or glitter. " Ruby silver," he 
said, softly. '* Ruby silver, and plenty of it. 
There's no end to the lead." 

He reached it to me tenderly, as though it 
could break at a touch. I did as was expected 
of me — scraped the fragment of mineral with 
a pen-knife, peered at it through the magni- 
fying glass, hefted it on my forefinger, and made 
the sagacious observation : " It looks well. I 
should say a very rich specimen." 

" It's from the Caiion de los Angelos," said the 
miner. 

I remembered it as a dismal gorge, torn up 
and riddled by volcanic action, a blasted wilder- 
ness of gashed and riven stone peaks, bearing 
aloft gnarled and twisted firs, their utmost sum- 
mits a region of ice, lifted above the hmit of 
life. The silence unbroken but by the howl of 
wild beasts and the war-whoop of the savage ; 
where only fresh mountain-heaps of piied-up 
lavas, marking the throes of the earthquake, vary 



192 The Land of the Pueblos. 

the forbidding gloom which baffles the traveler, 
entering it with a sense of approaching the Valley 
of the Shadow of Death. As soon expect water 
in desert-sand as gold in that lava-flood, silver in 
those melted rocks ! 

" How did you come to prospect in that dread- 
ful canon ? " I asked. 

"The strangest thing in the world," said the 
miner, "how I first lighted on it. I bought a 
plug of tobacco (it was six years ago), and car- 
ried it home in a piece of an old letter, dated 
sixteen hundred and something. I disremember 
the year. It was writ on thick yellow paper, to 
one of the Spanish governors, when Arizona and 
New Mexico was one. My wife was a-studyin* 
Spanish (you can't git along here without some), 
and she brought the dictionary to bear and spelt 
the thing out. It told about a rich lead in the 
Caiion de los Angelos ; but the paper was tore 
off in the very place I most wanted, so I couldn't 
exactly spot it. For nigh onto five years I've 
prospected. I've hunted off and on, in hot and 
cold, wet and dry. I've been hungry and 
thirsty. I've scorched and I've froze. Oncet I 
was nearly drowned by a sudden rise at night, 
when I camped in an arroya. One winter I was 
snow-blind. Many and many's the week I've 
heard no voice, nothing but the yelp of the coyote 
and the wind among the pines. Many and many 
a time I've smelt the grizzlies ; but, as luck 
v/ould have it, I never run onto one. A lion or 
a panther will run when he's hurt and roar ; but 
a grizzly doesn't, and, after bein' hit, shot 
through the heart, instead of dyin', he lives long 
enough to chaw up the hunter." 

Dear reader, beware of starting the Rocky 
Mountaineer on bear stories. You will feel the 
daisies growing over you before he slackens the 
strain of his eloquence. 



'///<? Ruby Silver Mine. — A Tuie Story. 193 

*• Did you spend all these six years in the 
Caiion ? " I inquired, by way of bringing the 
prospector back to the subject in hand. 

"Oh! no. By spells I went at other bizness ; 
but the idee of a fortune a-waitin' for me in Los 
Angelos, and that old Spanish letter made me 
sour on everything. You know it is in Valencia 
County." 

I did not, but made an amiable effort to look 
as though I did. 

" There's curious old things down there in 
them old lava-beds." 

" What things ? " I asked, for the first time 
rousing to any interest, for my antiquarian blood 
began to stir. 

'< Heaps of ruins, cities, ragged walls, sixty 
feet high and ten feet thick, scattered over miles 
and miles. The rafters air charred with the 
banked-up fire of the volcano ; but I see one 
beam as sound as the day it was laid up." 

" And how did the timber appear ? " 

" 'Twas piiion, squared with a stone hatchet or 
hammer and covered with markings — Indian 
signs, maybe — furrowed with a stone gouge. 
Then there was a drawin' of the sun, and a sort 
of a 7ieye ; the lava had buried deep, and people 
who like old potteries can get a wagon-load 
there. About four feet down I struck a room, 
about ten feet square, where there was a big fire- 
place ; and in it was a crane, with a clay hook, 
and on the end of the hook was a bone. By the 
side of the fire was a skeleton — the old man 
a-watchin' his bone a-roastin' on the hook, when 
here comes the lava and seals him up tight. 
Ov^er yonder, at the Fonda, I've got his skull ; 
and here " (he opened the revolver-pocket this 
time) — " here's the old fellow's finger-bone. I've 
lots of the same old arrowheads and a flint 
tomahawk." 



194 The Land of the Pueblos. 

I was greatly interested in the still relics of 
remote generations ; but we had not reached the 
mine, and the evening was far spent. " These 
were near your ruby silver mine ? '' I said, sug- 
gestively. 

'' Oh ! no. As I was sayin', I found the bones 
of a dog close to a spring of sweet water, and I 
knowed then I was a-gettin' warm. My time 
was pretty nigh out. The snow was so deep I 
hid my tools, and give up for the winter and 
hired out to the freighters. As soon as winter 
broke I lit out one moonshiny night. Somehow 
the prospectors in Santa Fe got wind of my moves. 
I don't know how, unless I told in my sleep, for 
I kept dumb as the dead, and I was afeered 
they'd track me, I hunted round that Spring in 
a ring of five miles. First, I found the aceqiiia 
which kept the buried city in water. I followed 
it in a blind lead for three-quarters of a mile, to a 
broken dam. The trail to the dam came next 
When I tell you cedars thick as my body air 
growin' on that trail, you have an idee how long 
it's been since tracks has been made in it." 

Just there I think the prospector drew on his 
imagination for his facts ; but his audience held 
their peace, and he continued : 

*' It was a mighty poor zigzag ; but it led to 
smelters." 

" To smelters ! " we both exclaimed, in a 
breath ; then followed a thrilling pause. The 
prospector had reached his climax, and he 
walked up and down the floor excitedly, tossing 
the ruby silver back and forth in his hands, like 
the hands of Esau. 

''To old smelters ! " he repeated, with empha- 
sis. He struck the Colossus-of-Rhodes pose on 
the wolf-skin rug and continued : 

" They was made of adobes, and was raised 
some twenty foot above the ground, and had saw 



The Ruby Silver Mine. — A True Story. 195 

hard service. I prowled around there a full 
month, hackin' and diggin' alone ; for I dassent 
tell anybody but a Pueblo Indian, and threatened 
to kill him if he ever made sign to white man. 
It was my last throw. I was hard up. My old 
pard v/as dead, give out with rheumatism. My 
wife had went back to the States. My credit 
(never anything to brag on) went after my wife " 
(he smiled, for the first time), " and I see plain 
luck must come soon or never ; but I never lost 
my grip. I knowed I was a-gittin' warm. There's 
no sign like the buried towns. It's certain indi- 
cation of diggin's not far off. It's the rule all 
over the territories. I lived on venison, venison, 
till it was worse than old mutton. About three 
mile away was a lake, w^here I scooped up salt 
with my hands ; but venison and salt gets 
monotonous week in and week out. There was 
plenty of charcoal (had been used by the min- 
ers, whoever they was), and I made out that the 
dam led the water of the Abo to the works. 
From the old furnaces I found another over- 
grown trail, that run to this mine." 

•' What sort of mine is it ? " 

'' One of the covered-up ones. It's certain hun- 
dreds of years old, buried under felled timber. 
Some of it had rooted. I was a month gettin' 
through, and it took a sharp eye to sight it." 
The speaker modestly blinked the milky orbs 
under their pink lashes, and continued : " The 
shaft is eighty feet deep or m.ore, walled up with 
pine, and drifts runnin' to the right and left a 
hundred feet or so. I've set my stakes and the 
papers is all made out. It's mine, and no divide, 
and not a soul on earth knows about it except 
you two and me." 

I have seen so many ruined prospectors hunt- 
ing mines that are nothing but myths, it was 



Tg6 The Land of the Pueblos. 

cheering to learn there could be no mistake about 
this discovery. 

" You have fairly earned all you have found," 
I said, in sympathy. 

" Gvacias, SeTiora^' said the rich man, dramat- 
ically waving the Esau hand, evidently enjoying 
his Spanish. 

''You see this specimen will run twelve hun- 
dred to the ton, and there's no end to the lead." 
He teetered the stone on his trembling forefinger. 
•' I've had a hard time ! My wife never got done 
mournin' she ever spelt out the old letter. She'll 
feel better now. I've struck it, and I guess I've 
struck it rich." 

And he had. With a farewell toss up of the 
ruby silver specimen, till it struck the muslin 
ceiling overhead, the fortunate man, haggard 
and shaken, yet hilarious, took his leave. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE RUBY SILVER MINE. {CouHnUed) 

Six months later, in the shade of a Hght um- 
brella, I sauntered along the beach at Cape May. 
Down by the summer sea, where lovers walk 
with lingering step, rapt, heedless as the dead, of 
aught but tender glances and soft words whisper- 
ed under the sound of the surf. After the desert 
silence and parching dryness of the territories, it 
was a deep pleasure to breathe once more the 
salt, moist air, to hear the mighty monotone, and 
watch the restless play of light and color on 
breakers rolling in from the far Bermudas, beat- 
ing against the shore like the tireless heart of 
earth. 

Thinking upon nothing but simple enjoyment 



The Ruby Silver Mine. — Continued. 197 

of earth, sea, and sky, I strolled in quiet sym- 
pathy with the unknown crowd, when suddenly 
an open carriage, drawn by two horses, stopped 
near us. It was light as a wicker toy, the airiest, 
fairiest thing manufactured since the night Cin- 
derella rode to the ball. So slight in construction 
one miglit think it would scarcely bear the 
weight of one person, had we not seen that every 
portion was perfectly wrought. The tempered 
steel and light wheels would endure a severe 
strain. Ornate as burnish could make it, gilding 
and varnish sparkled in the sunlight, gay rosette 
and flying ribbon were not lacking. Instead of 
cloth, the lining was plaited violet satin, of ex- 
quisite tint. I have never seen so elegant a turn- 
out elsewhere. The cushions were fit for an em- 
press' laces and velvets to trail on, a seat where 
a king might rest and keep the soil from the 
ermine and velvet of his coronation robe. 

The small horses seemed made for the fairy 
carriage. They were coal-black, perfectly match- 
ed, without a white hair on them. Your corres- 
pondent knows precious little about horses, ex- 
cept one ancient pony, which lost an eye in a 
pre-historic raid on a corn-crib ; but ignorance 
itself could see these were of no common blood. 
The broad faces and delicate ears, the luminous 
eyes, soft as an antelope's, the arching necks, 
veiled with silken manes like the fluffy hair of 
young girls, come of no menial race, such as 
haul drays and drop on pavements in the streets. 
The mettlesome, high-bred beauties, pawing im- 
patiently with hoofs like polished ebony, were 
such steeds as dash through the Ouida novels or 
come home at the masters' call under the black 
tents, the Arab houses of hair. We had started 
for the light-house, three miles away, and in the 
dazzle of all that luxury and ease the brightness 
went out of the day. My walk suddenly became 



198 he Lcvrid of the Pueblos. 

hard and long. It required the entire skill and 
strength of the liveried driver to manage the 
reins, while the occupant within leaped nin,bly 
out to adjust some portion of the harness. He 
was dressed in garments of finest fabric and fresh- 
est cut, in which the tailor had missed the easy 
fit so coveted by gentlemen. A Pactolian watch- 
chain streamed across his breast, .and lightish 
gloves on massive hands gave the wearer the as- 
pect of being pretty much all gloves. A host 
of idlers gathered in a moment, and, with them, 
I stopped to admire the equipage, perfect in 
make and ornament, costly as money can buy, 
and then and there broke the tenth command- 
ment. 

Evidently the envied man felt fussy and grew 
fidgety under all those staring eyes. I rubbed 
mine (not so young as they once were), to clear 
a confused, bewildering recollection. Could it 
be ? No ! impossible ! To reassure myself, I 
looked toward the sea, then back again to the sky, 
the town. It w^as no spirit of earth or air, no cheat 
of vision or brain. The territorial sunburn had 
faded from his face, but lingered in the scorched 
carrot hair, and Rocky Mountain wTinkles are 
not easily ironed out. Well I knew those early 
crow's feet at the corners of the milky blue orbs. 
The owner of the princely establishment, wath its 
rare belongings, was none other than our frontier 
friend, once sole proprietor of the Dives Mine, in 
the Canon de los Angelos, which sold for eighteen 
hundred thousand dollars. 

The golden key opens many doors ; but it takes 
time and some skill to fit it into the lock. The 
lavender kids split as the Dives miner hastily 
jerked them off, to fasten a harness-buckle ; the 
flash of a superb diamond ring follow^ed the 
movement. He threw the delicately tinted gloves 
on the ground, with words more emphatic than 



The Riiby Silver Mine.—Contmned. 199 

correct, muttered under a scant fringe of pink 
moustache, then turned a deprecating, apologetic 
glance toward the crowd. 

An instant the ancient prospector held me 
with his glittering eye. It said, plainly as 
whisper in my ear : I beg you do not tell on me. 

I did not. He hurried back to his place". The 
Esau hand, with its blazing diamond, closed the 
door with a heavy slam. It did not hold. He 
banged it again, and yet once more, growing ver^^ 
red in the face, before he could lean away from our 
gaze back on the violet cushions. From that 
soft recess he called loudly to the driver to '' git." 
There were a few significant nods as the night- 
black steeds sped with swift grace over the wet 
beach, but nothing was said except by a very 
charming young lady, fresh from Ollendorf. She 
released a loving arm to bend forward a moment 
and wave her fine little handkerchief at the van- 
ishing show, exclaiming : '* Adieu, monsieur 
le nouveau riche!' 

The sweet girl graduate had taken the sense 
of the meeting. When the purple and gold 
passed from sight, the throng fell into line as 
before the interruption, and in placid enjoyment 
yielded to the dreamy spell of vesper sunlight 
and lulling sound. All was refined, serene, 
restful. 

The mild ripples, changeful as the hues of 
the dolphin, came and went, leaving their 
slight tracery in the sand, secret messages from 
hidden depths far away. The blue waters mur- 
mured mystic music to fair and gracious maidens 
and youths of gentle, graceful mien ; tender 
cushats, cooing and wooing and sighing, but not 
for the touch of vanished hands. The rhythmic 
ebb and flow charmed the sense with hints of 
warbling peris and dying cadences of mermaids' 
songs. Earth and ocean in perfect tune, the 



200 The Land of the Pueblos. 

very air tlirilled with a tremulous harmony, 
while youth and beauty wove their low, sweet 
idyl. Lapwings glided along the sands, where 
the sick lady rested in her invalid chair, under a 
gayly-striped awning. White gulls screar.ied 
and circled round a ship lying at anchor in the 
shining bay, her flag a wavy line of brilliant 
color against the pale horizon. Beyond it, in 
dim perspective, a long procession of vessels 
slowly sailing. An endless picture, suggestive 
of famous places and unknown nations, gathered 
treasure of pearl and amber, spicery and silks, 
and happy home, coming from voyages through 
halcyon seas, by distant fragrant shores. The 
wind was warm, its breath was balm, the world 
was lulled to rest. 

A flush of pink fell from out the tranquil sky. 
It dropped fresh roses on faded cheeks, and in 
its blush I saw the young face beside me as it had 
been the face of an angel. Then I thought the 
beautiful is wealth, the world over. My darling 
holds in her slender hand the keys of the pal- 
aces. 

The walk to the light-house was not so bad, 
after all. 

My holiday ended, I returned to the City of 
Holy Faith, and exactly a year from the date of 
this story took my constitutional walk in the 
splendor of sunlight such as never falls on land 
or sea east of the Rocky Mountains. No fear 
oi rain to drive me indoors, no speculations about 
clear or cloudy to-morrows, we know a radiant 
shining will lighten the coming morning, just as 
it filled the sky of yesterday. With the Pueblos, 
I am a devout sun-worshipper and love at his ris- 
ing to salute the lord of light and life, and again 
" under the sad passion of the dying day " to 
watch his departure. Returning from my invisi- 
ble altar on old Fort Marcy, I threaded my way 




4i\0»^^ 




^;jf^^ 





Zufii Effigies, 



The Ruby Silver Mine, — Continued. 201 

through cramped and crooked streets, and, mak- 
ing the round of the Plaza, saw beside the gate a 
burro being loaded with a miner's outfit. He 
was not much larger than a dog ; beyond com- 
pare the most wretched of his miserable race, a 
pitiable wreck. He was mangy and sore-eyed, 
his tail tapered to a stumpy point, the tuft at the 
end fallen beyond the reach of any " restorer." 
Patches of hair worn off in various portions of 
his body exposed wrinkled, leathery hide, and the 
dark cross over the shoulders was pitted with 
scars, like marks of small-pox. There was not 
enough flesh on those protrusive bones to make 
one meal for the ravening mountain wolf, or 
a respectable lunch for half a dozen carrion crows. 
Arid and dusty, the creature looked like the 
mummy of some antediluvian animal. Easy to 
see his portion had been kicks, scourge, goads, 
abuse; no champagne savannah, no green meadow 
or lush blue grass in his line of travel ; but life- 
withering marches in snowy and sandy desert, 
where scant herbage and meagre shrub were 
enough for the starving slave. 

Yet the sorry beast was not senseless nor alto- 
gether broken in spirit. A train of mules went 
by. Among them he recognized an old acquaint- 
ance, a fellow- sufferer. He lifted his head and 
plucked up heart for a passing salute, essaying a 
feeble bray. The unwonted sound was too great 
an effort for the gaunt throat. It died in a hoarse 
rattle and was buried in a succession of notes, 
the strangest mortal ear has heard since that old 
day Jubal first struck the gamut. 

Pick, shovel, bags of crackers, blanket, and 
coffee-pot were piled high on the tough burden- 
bearer, and, watching the loading done by a 
Mexican boy, a tall man lazily leaned against the 
diminutive brute, apparently reckless of the dan- 
ger of upsetting donkey and cargo, and sending 



202 The Land of the Pueblos, 

them sprawling across the sidewalk. There was 
nothing to draw attention in his familiar uniform 
— high-top boots, cactus-proof buckskin pants, 
hickory shirt, red neck-handkerchief; but under 
the broad slouch hat were straggling locks that 
caught my eye — a peculiar tinge of reddish 
bronze, the cabello del oro of the Argonaut 

of '79. 

The never-resting wheel of fortune had made 
the downward curve. The Dives miner had 
summered in Saratoga, betting on cards and 
horses, had staked tens of thousands on the haz- 
-ard of a dicer's throw, lost everything, and now 
was back to the starting-place, ready to try 
again. I remembered the purple and gold, the 
•dash and glitter of the rich man at Cape May. 
The apparition of prancing steeds of matchless 
beauty, with dainty limbs, too dainty for the sand 
they touched but to spurn, flitted before me. 

Gambler though he was and deserved it, the 
foriornness of the change would touch a harder 
heart than yours or mine, dear reader. I 
stepped toward the gate. At that moment 
Dives — perhaps I had best say Lazarus — poked 
the poor hirro with a sharp stick and, in a high, 
gay voice, struck up : 

" Of all the wives you e'er can know, 
There's none like Nancy Lee, I trow." 

Then, as Bunyan hath it, he went on his way 
and I saw him no more. 

This story sounds like a pure invention. Does 
it not ? I confess to trifling attempts in decora- 
tive art, a tiny dash of color, the least bit of 
embroidery, just to round a corner and give a 
little life to dullness, you know, but not now. 
My hero is to-day a day-laborer, working in the 
great King Henry lead in the Shakespeare dis- 
trict of New Mexico — the man who for one 



Mine Experience. 205. 

brief summer reckoned his money by hundreds 
of thousands. You can see him when you go. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

MINE EXPERIENCE. 

The reader who graciously follows me to the 
end of this brief history will readily comprehend 
why it must be somewhat obscure. '' I could a 
tale unfold " better worth the hearing, but like 
the poor ghost I am forbid to tell the secrets of 
my prison house. It need harrow up no soul to 
hint that the scene was laid and drama played 
not a thousand miles from Tucson, Arizona. 

Imagine a vega of sea -like vastness, in a rock- 
setting of ghostly Sierras whose rent crags pierce 
through the rich blue air far above the snowline. 
In the primeval years the Apaches possessed the 
country, and with the poetic instinct which never 
quite forsakes the savagest of savages they 
called this range the Mist-Befringed Mountains. 
To reach the valley from the west, we leave the 
main road and cross rough masses of lava which 
block the way. The seeming barrier ends in a 
narrow pass, a mile or so from wall to wall, — a 
mighty stone corridor stately as Karnak, and 
■gloomy with the all-pervading silence of death. 
At the end is a high natural gateway of red 
granite ; passing under it we emerge into a smooth 
expanse level as water, an amphitheatre whose 
blank surface is relieved by scattered masses 
of lava upheaved in some fiery earthquake long 
stilled their rigid outlines jagged and bristling. 

There is no verdure to soften the foothills so 
savagely hacked and split in yav/ning cracks. 
No tender moss, no shrub, no sparkling water or 



204 The Land of the Pueblos. 

waving branches brighten the leaden hues of the 
gray desert; treeless, windless, waterless. If 
herbage ever grew there it is now overdrifted 
with sand. The wonderful mirage — most mar- 
velous of Nature's mysteries — swims over it in 
the dreamy haze of early morning. A deep, 
dark coolness follows the burning day, and the 
jeweled sky, of opal and turquoise, I's unspeaka- 
bly beautiful. Other change there la none. 

It would seem a place for the unclean condor 
to lay her eggs on the bare rocks, and the eagle 
to wheel and scream and stir up her nest with 
wings which battle the storm; but there is no 
trace of bird or insect life, no wolf or antelope, 
coyote or lizard. 

It is the one place in which I have stood 
where the earth is as still as the sky. Suppose 
we call the dreary region with its adamantine 
rocks the Foothills of the Mountains of the 
Moon, There in the beginning silence set her 

seal, unbroken till eighteen hundred and 

some odd years. For reasons obvious, I cannot 
be exact regarding dates. 

In a memorable hour the death-like hush was 
startled by the ring of a single hammer on the 
torn mountain wall at the west end of the vega. 
Blow on blow against the riven clefts resounded 
through the warm blue silence. 

Was it a Bostonian seeking the Infinite ? Did 
he see beyond the verge of sight, like the young 
Aladdin led on by the Genii of the Cave ? 

All day the one man toiled, digging, hewing, 
breaking, scraping pieces of stone with a pen- 
knife. What he sought he evidently found, put 
some of it in his pockets, other portions in his 
haversack, and wound out of the cavernous 
gloom at sunset through the narrow defile to the 
world outside the lifeless plain. He is brave 



Mine Experience. 205 

beyond the bravest who would stay there till 
midnight, 

"Alone in the terrible waste with God." 
A week passed, and one crisp and clear morn- 
ing — owing to very high altitude the nights here 
are always cool — three men passed under the 
rock gateway, each with tools and determina- 
tion of iron. Steadily they worked in the long 
hot day, stopping for lunch and a short rest at 
noon. Only the all seeing eye was upon them, 
no human ear was there to hear, yet at intervals 
they looked arcund as though in an enemy's 
country, and their rare speech was in suppressed 
voices. They bent with faces to the ground as 
children hunt for nuts. They peered into cracks 
and crevices and pried up loose stones, scattered 
debris^ broke them open, and gazed at their inte- 
rior under a hand mirror. Occasionally the light- 
est man, a mere stripphng, mounted the shoul- 
ders of the other two and seized something 
above their heads. Were they a trio of poets 
obeying the charge of the Bard of the Sierras, 
" Lean your ladder not against the clouds, but 
against the solid Rocky Mountains and climb 
there ? " They saw something which thrilled 
their pulses, and bore off a load in sacks just as 
the snow crowned peaks blushed with the ineffa- 
ble beauty of the afterglow. Then darkness 
leaped from the mountain walls and held the 
valley, in the starry silence, lone as the land 
Haviliah before the first gold seekers crossed the 
river on their endless quest. 

Another week brought a picnic party largely 
composed of ladies, two gentlemen in army blue, 
girls made of roses and dimples, curls and rib- 
bons, young men with eager, handsome faces. 
Rocky Mountain ladies are always well mounted 
and are fearless horsewomen. Diana Vernon 
might ^\\\y their dash and daring, and in this 



2o6 The Land of the Pueblos, 

rarified atmosphere horses are mettlesome and 
endure as they cannot in the low countries. 
There was much prancing and spurring through 
the rugged defile, and many a rider less bold 
would have been unseated even on the sure- 
footed ponies. They brought little twigs of 
pinones from the caTions and made fires with 
matches scraped on boot heels ; they unpacked 
hampers, opened cans, played games, shouted, 
sung, wild with overflowing spirits ; they ate, 
drank and were merry, all the while hunting and 
hunting. Lovers strayed in pairs to dusky 
recesses in the mountain rim, not on purpose to 
be lost nor to find the four-leaf clover, nor yet to 
learn how to make love dials of daisies. They 
sought something more than the hasty charm of 
a stolen kiss. They looked for shining stones, 
gleaming metal, precious clay, and every one 
carried in a pocket handkerchief minute sec- 
tions of the adamantine Foothills of the Moun- 
tains of the Moon. Even uninstructed eyes can 
trace the rust colored, red-brown lines of ** blos- 
som rock," and it is following a captivating lead 
to yield one's self to its beguiling ways. 

One youth and maiden tracked it far up the 
caTion to a gnarled and twisted pine which over- 
hung the edge of a sheer crag to which it clung 
by roots clutching like claws. In the dry, dew- 
less air the needles of the pine lay in soft carpet- 
ing undisturbed for ages. They sat and rested 
beneath the skeleton tree, and listened to soft 
aeolian airs faintly stirring the bare branches over- 
head. Then she sang in the sweetest voice: 

" Is this a dream ? Then waking would be pain." 

And in answer he tossed up his cap and it 
lodged in the pine, and they clapped their hands 
in an impromptu chorus, '' No, no, no! a thou- 
sand times, no ! " If there be elves in the Mist- 
Befringed Mountains they must have laughed at 



Mine Experience. 207 

this frolicsome glee, for such sounds are a new 
revelation there. The young couple were not 
crazy, they had heaved up a rough brown stone, 
and striking it with a heavy hammer they saw — 
ay de mi ! the electric flash of wedding rings. 
The zigzag lines of " blossom rock" held WTeaths 
of orange flowers, hitherto unattainable, and now 
they felt so near their sweetness they were filled 
with delight. The poor young things had 
thought best to bear their poverty apart (he was 
a second lieutenant), but now they could hear 
marriage bells in every stroke of the magic ham- 
mer, in every throb of their happy hearts. 

A stray dove, bewildered and lost, lighted at 
their feet, tame because ignorant of men, and 
they hailed the gentle bird as an omen. Then he 
called her his dove-eyed darling, talking the 
sweet foolery my gray-haired reader laughs at, 
but would give a year of peaceful life to hear 
again for one half-hour. 

O day of bridal brightness whose splendor 
lives in the illuminated Book of Chronicles! — let 
me linger a moment over its unfading beauty. 
The lovers locked their happy arms together and 
trod lightly over enchanted ground, in the silence 
of perfect happiness, — all that is left us of the 
lost language of Eden. Wherever their spark- 
ling glances fell, myrtles sprung up. O never, 
on land, or in sea, grew flowers like those which 
bloomed in their foot-prints along the sandy beds 
of "blossom rock." 

The lieutenant was bare-headed, for he never 
got his cap, though he stoned it valiantly and 
even shot his revolver at the limb where it hung. 
A frontier lady is full of expedients as Robinson 
Crusoe, and the girl he loved, with deft and taste- 
ful fingers devised a cap from her silken kerchief 
and trimmed it with a drooping feather from her 
own riding hat. Very proud was the face 



2oS The Land of the Pueblos. 

beneath it, and he bowed in admiration of her 
ingenuity and murmured some soft nonsense you 
do not care to hear. 

They joined the party in the plain with an 
assumption of indifference, transparent as mica, 
— a flimsy ruse, old as the oldest lovers, — and 
of course every one saw just how matters stood 
the instant they appeared. He went to look 
after the pony, tied by a lariat to a block of 
stone, patted her never so gently, stroked her 
mane, and called her " Pretty girl, pretty girl." The 
maiden sat on a striped Navayo blanket and in 
an arch bewitching way sang to an old Spanish 
air full of trills and graces this song : 

"QUIENSABE?"* 



" The breeze of the evening that cools the hot air, 

That kisses the oraii^e and shakes out thy hair, 

Is its freshness less welcome, less sweet its perfume, 

That you know not tlie region from whence it is come? 

Whence thi^ wiiul blows, where the wind goes. 

Hither, and thither, and whither— who knows? Who knows ? 

Hither and thither— but whither— who knows? 



" The river forever glides singing along. 

The rose on the bank bends adown to its song. 

And the flower, as it listens, unconsciously dips 

Till the rising wave glistens and kisses its lips. 

But why the wave rises and kisses the rose. 

And why the rose stops for those kisses— who knows? Who knows? 

And away flows the river— but wliither— who knows ? 

III. 

" Let me be the breeze, love, that wanders along 

The river that ever rejoices in song; 

Be thou to my fancy the orange in bloom, 

The rose by the river rhat gives its perfume. 

Would the "fruit be so golden, so fragrant the rose, 

If no breeze and no wave were to kiss them ? Who knows ? Who 

kiunvs ? 
If no bi Cf ze and no wave were to kiss them ? Who knows ? " 

Before the singer lay the desert grim and 
bare, girdled by scarred, seamed mountains — a 
boundry wall touched with purplish tints of 

* I need hardly tell my reader the words " Qtden Sahe? '''— 
•'Who knows?"— are the unanswerable answer forever on the 
Spanish-speaking tongue. 



Mine Experience. 209 

supreme beauty. Behind her, a dim ouUine of 
snow and granite in the far horizon, the Sierra 
Nevada projected against the rainless blue, the 
blade of snow-white teeth which suggested its 
Castilian name. The valley had a fascination from 
its absolute loneliness. Not a cloud flecked the 
blue above, not a breath stirred the air while the 
song was sung. 

The elders gave it a divided attention, being 
intent on lumps of treasure which they "hefted" 
in their palms, balanced on their forefingers, and 
gazed at affectionately through a glass into which 
they puckered their eyelids, making gathers of 
the crow's feet quite frightful to see. As each 
one passed the glass to his neighbor he nodded 
in dumb approval, with a look of mystery smiling 
and smiling, and the more enthusiastic winked 
and rubbed their hands as it went the rounds. 

Such witbi craft is there in one small hand 



muTor 



After lunch at picnics there is usually a period 
of "nooning" while gentlemen smoke and ladies 
recline, or seek siestas in friendly shade ; but there 
was no quiet here and to the last no flagging of 
the high festivity. 

A rose-blush of exquisite haze, a phantasm 
*' mystic, wonderful," floating through the vapory 
architecture of the Sierras, seemed the very soul 
of the halcyon day. The adorable girl who 
turned more than one head by smoking cigarettes, 
waved her hand at the shade and called loudly, 
" Look, see, the day is dying, its spirit is passing. 
Turn your faces to the west and be attentive." 

Gaily they hastened to gather round the fair 
speaker. With low mutterings and many tragic 
gestures she drew a circle in the sand, stood in 
the centre and blew a whiff of smoke, north, 
south, east, west, as Moqui Indians invoke the 
sun with their incantations. 



2IO The Land of the Pueblos. 

" Now," said the self-elected priestess, with 
solemn accent, '• now watch without speech or 
breath, and we will have a token and a sign from 
the god of the Pueblos.'' 

Humoring her fancy, they waited in silence 
and lo ! before their eyes the shape darkened, 
glowed, transmuted into a mass of glittering 
gold. 

*' The oracles have answered," she cried. 
"Good bye, O Sun, ruler of this hour, take thanks 
from thy white children for the golden promise 
of to-day. Believers, salute him." 

All obeyed, and with bare head and uproarious 
cheers waved hats and handkerchiefs in good bye 
to the day and the friendly powers that be. The 
merry cavalcade, laughing and shouting, rode 
straight into the golden fire and flaming snow, 
each one carrying heavy weights of stone, every 
heart beating lightly. 

Rapidly the voices died away. The metallic 
luster of the sky melted into opalescent pearl and 
purple. Day and night kissed and parted. Sud- 
denly the stars looked out in serene eternal beauty 
on the smouldering fires, the vanishing trace of 
man, and the vega alone with the night, — the 
hushed desolation doubly drear for the appari- 
tion of loveliness which endured but for a day. 

The next morning brought more men with 
picks and hammers, mules laden with kegs of 
water, shovels and various cooking utensils and 
traps. There was a stir and bustle, two tents 
were pitched; a conspicuous figure was a cook 
" come up from de Souf durin' de wah," — sign of 
a permanent camp. Against stubborn clay and 
quartz rock work goes on slowly, but it did go 
on in the Mist- Befringed Mountains. It took 
many weeks to survey a certain district and make 
excavations, one deep as a well. They were 
made against obstacles which daunt men of 



Mine Experience. 2ii 

weak will ; lack of fuel, lack of water, torrid sun- 
heat, chill, benumbing nights. The plain was 
dotted with holes very like graves, marked with 
little pine head-boards bearing dates and figures. 
They have sweet names: "Baby Mine," "Golden 
Fleece," " Sleeping Beauty," " Maud Muller," 
" Highland Mary, " " Daystar, " ^' The Fair 
Ophelia." This last is the deepest excavation. 

Usually claim stakes, for such they are, in out^ 
of-the-way places mark the '' Old Bourbon, " 
" The Right Bower," " Dying Gasp," " Wake up, 
Jake," " New Deal," " Chance Shot," "The Blue 
Pup," and so on. The titles are indication of 
the vein of tender sentiment which runs deep in 
the heart of woman. Evidently gentle souls 
fluttered about the head-boards when they were 
set in the ground. They were standing there 
to-day. 

* * * 5fi -x- * * 

That row of stars, dear reader, means, 

"Thoughts which do lie too deep for tears." 



Sometimes in quiet Sunday afternoons a party 
of lovely women, the charmed number not less 
than the graces nor more than the muses, ride 
out from Las Lunas, through the frowning 
avenue and lonesome gorge, and haunt the silent 
valley as mourners are wont to linger about new- 
made graves. To avoid trouble in remembering 
names I group them. 

Allow me to present my charming friends the 
Pleiads. Years, tears, or study, perhaps all com- 
bined, have dimmed the briUiance of one face. 
They tread softly and slowly, are very depressed, 
and appear to find a mourner's consolation in 
reading the head-boards. Under the funeral 
shadow cast by the overhanging pine (the Lieu- 
tenant's cap is still there ) they sit on newly 
spaded earth and compare experience and 



5i2 Land of the Pueblos. 

sorrows. A dove in the skeleton tree, listening, 
might hear subdued laments : "O why did I touch 
the ' Sleeping Beauty ? ' " " ' Of all the sad words 
of tongue or pen,' " " ' All that glitters is not 
gold, ' " and as they bend above the " Highland 
Mary," one hums an old song, beginning : 

" Thou lingering star with lessening ray.' 

Sung with tenderness and pathos it floats 
through the deathlike stillness like a dirge. Can 
it be possible these sad-eyed mourners are the 
bright spirits of the picnic, who made that shin- 
ing day 

" a beauteous dream, 

If it had been no more ? " 

'Twere vain to tell thee all. 

Just when it matters not, these women pon- 
dered over maps, meaningless to them as the fif- 
teen puzzle which has proved the streak of id- 
iocy in the entire human family ; over Miner's 
Handbooks, over the ''Prospector's Complete 
Guide to Wealth." They grew familiar with 
frightful engravings, flaming pictures of red hot 
underground machinery, lurid as the Insurance 
Chromo. Light literature and the newspapers 
were forsaken, and instead their tables were lit- 
tered with such pamphlets as " Treatises on the 
Patent Amalgamator," ''The best method of 
reducing Argentiferous Ores," and "The Hy- 
draulic Ram," — a horrible subject. The femi- 
nine mind does not readily adjust itself to this 
sort of lore, and though novel and highly instruc- 
tive they were forced to confess it was "trying." 
The owner of "The Fair Ophelia" almost lost 
her reason in a frantic and futile effort to master 
the workings of the diamond drill, and to com- 
prehend the advantages the double oscillating 
cylinder engine has over the steel or percussi'/c 
system of drilling. 



Mine Experience. 213 

While these exhaustive studies went on, the 
students discoursed of fissure veins, of float, 
leads, developments, face rock, bed rock, pyrites, 
chlorides, sulphurets. Alternating anguish and 
ecstacy shook their slender frames; one day 
brought a dazzling promise, the next a blank 
contradiction which told on their nerves with the 
force of a blow. Everything was shifting and 
uncertain except the assessments. There was a 
sense of security in having one thing to be 
relied on, and they v^ere brought in with exact 
regularity. The moon did not wax and wane 
with more unvarying certainty, and obligations 
of all sorts were met with unquestioning prompt- 
ness, not to say alacrity. 

How many months' pay went into these rich 
experiences your historian is unable to record. 
The Pleiads, though brilliant in the social circle, 
were not trained to strict business habits, and it 
is possible, indeed quite probable, no account of 
expense was kept. In that time the battered 
old pun about lying on your oars (not to be 
despised and able to bear a good deal of abuse 
yet) was dinned in ears to which the antique wit- 
ticism was already familiar. The note of warn- 
ing fell lightly as snow falls on snow, leaving no 
imprint ; and the toilsome excavating went 
bravely on. A judicious friend — merely a 
looker-on — advised selling out. The old front- 
iersman was assailed with indignant scorn. Much 
learning had made him mad. 

'' What ! sell out now, now, in the face of such 
a prospect." 

" After all this outlay ! " 

"After holding on so long ! Now ! " 

" Not if I know myself." 

" Nor I." 

" Nor I." 

" Nor T." 



214 The Land of the Pueblos. 

Before the seven-fold chorus and harpings the 
dismayed counsellor hastily retreated to his 
adobe office, and the Pleiads looked forth as the 
morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and 
terrible as an army with banners. 

Patient investigation fails to show up (uncon- 
sciously one drops into mining phrase in mining 
countries) any offer to buy, but the very thought 
of selling out was rousing — a reflection on the fair 
owner of "The Fair Ophelia." Varying rapture 
and despair wore those lovely women to faded 
spectres, for the long, slow lesson of waiting is a 
fearful strain on tense nerves. Well for their 
balance is it that housekeeping is so difficult on 
the barren frontier. 

Despite the wholesome restraint of domestic 
duty, the daily task of making something out of 
nothing, they wiled away long afternoons 
telling stories worthy the best days of Monte 
Christo, Captain Kidd and the gallant Sinbad. 
A childish credulity overtook them. Though 
highly intellectual and very superior, educated in 
modern " culture" (Boston accent), they showed 
a capacity for belief that was amazing. 

How diligently they groped along the tangled 
lines on the agonizing maps ! How glibly they 
talked of metalliferous foothills, of bonanza kings, 
of "extracting" and "separating processes," of 
running galleries and driven tunnels. You know 
it is the amateur who is most sanguine in 
ev^ery enterprise. The joint stock of enthusiasm 
owned by the Pleiads lightened the way but was 
not inexhaustible. Notwithstanding enlivening 
converse in learned phrase — a kind of foreign 
language — hope flickered, the fever burned their 
eyes into hollows, and the judicious friend shook 
his white head in secret, forecasting how long 
this sort of thing was going to last. 

When the crisis came Electra fainted dead 



Mine Experience, 215 

away, — dropped as if shot through the heart. 
She was a good deal reduced with study of 
secrets hid in '< The Smelter," and the book 
slipped from her nerveless hand as she reached 
out to receive the dispatch. 

It came at the close of the short twilight of a 
day never to be forgotten. She was sitting in 
the portal to catch the last rays on the printed 
page, for her eyes are not so young as they once 
were, and in this land there is brief margin time 
of silver gray sky and drowsing earth. There 
trotted along the sheep paths and through the 
cramped and crooked streets a burro with all the 
speed a burro can make, goaded forward by a 
stick sharpened to that end. Mounted on him 
without bridle, saddle, whip or spur, was a boy 
recognized as a sort of messenger in the camp 
of the Mist-Befringed Mountains, — a boy beauti- 
ful as a princess' page, with real Murillo head 
and luminous oiiental eyes beaming with steady 
light in the olive face. There was exceptional 
grace in the movement of his limbs as he dis- 
mounted ; his voice is always sad, and the soft 
''Buenos dias Seriora,'' conveyed no hint whether 
the bearer brought tidings good or ill. Bare- 
headed, he yet contrived to make the courtly 
Spanish bov/, shook back his jetty locks, and 
bending low delivered the letter. The boy's 
lovely name is Rafael Antonina Molino, and the 
dispatch was a leaf torn from a scratch -book, 
scrawled in haste with a hand that evidently 
trembled in the writing. It ran : 

Near Las Lunas. 

At last! About noon yesterday the digger 
in '< The Fair Ophelia" .struck soft carbonates 
genuine Leadville carbonates, and are now down 
four feet. They show up better and better. 

Your own Jason. 



2i6 Tlte Land of the Pueblos. 

P. S. — Send mc a white shirt. I am to speak 
at the ratification meeting to-night. 

A thrilhng pause — a scream, a bursting shower 
of tears, kisses, embraces, a confusion of tongues 
in which the word "carbonate" was the only- 
one common to all. Such a sunshiny storm is 
possible only to nervous women intensely 
wrought. In the Melee a natty little jacket, 
brought by mail from Altman's and almost as 
good as new, was absolutely ripped to pieces. 
When mines are en bonanza (free translation, 
"booming") who cares for New York jackets ? 

I shrink from the attempt to picture what Car- 
lyle might call the resplendent weeks which fol- 
lowed, while a test ton of ore was sent to Silver 
City for reduction. Still less can I venture to 
touch the forlorn portrait of the judicious friend 
who advised selling out. He repented in sack 
cloth and alkali dust, and meekly apologized 
three times a day and again at bed time. So 
vanquished, he kept close in his earth works and 
hardly took courage to share the general joy. 
They are living yet who believe there was a dash 
of sarcasm in the withered smile with which he 
modestly used to inquire after the wealth of 
Denmark's daughter. Through the resplendent 
weeks ( I love that exquisite word) the spectres 
scarcely lost sight of each other, and they were 
very pallid. They mooned about like young 
lovers in a trance, and like them saw with eyes 
anointed. A glory rested on our dull earth, ting- 
ing it with rose-bloom and amethyst, as the win- 
try moon, looking tlirough pictured windows, 
warmed the snowy breast of Madeline, utterly te 
viontee, a riotous prodigality possessed them. 
Their bank account was a sight to see, and under 
the sweet influence of the Pleiads the poor 
rejoiced and beggars thrived. 



Mine Experience. 217 

In happy nights, too sweet for sleep, they 
gathered liUes of Damascus and draiil-: from 
springs shaded by pkimy pahiis of Jiidea. They 
painted birds, long legged birds on panels, and 
sets of china containing a thousand pieces each. 
Ever they whispered, murmured, dreamed. 
Soon as the delirium passed and the fever cooled 
they resolved to flee '< the finest climate in the 
world," beloved of reporters, which every one 
rushes away from as soon as he has the money 
to go. 

Take care ! Take care ! These are the shores 
of doom. Among other curious formations in 
the adamantine Foothills of the Mountains of the 
Moon are the Lodestone Rocks. Swiftly, swiftly, 
the ship was drawn to them. The gilded argosy 
with its precious freightage, swelling sail and tri- 
umphant banner went to pieces. Rosebloom and 
violet faded into the light of common day. The 
poor headboards beside the open graves are the 
last of the wreck, marking the spot where hopes 
rose so brightly they appeared sure prophesies 
unrolled. 

[Dear reader, on whom I lean in tender con- 
fidence, forgive this secret tear over the hfeless 
clay of *' The Fair Ophelia." I sat by its cradle, 
I followed its hearse.] 

The judicious friend ventures abroad now. He 
smiles shrewdly and the mourners dream no 
more. They see with cleared vision, and will 
take one of the many roads which lead to the 
Golden Milestone, and their dreams wih all come 
true when galena sells for a dollar an ounce. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE RUINS OF MONTEZUMA'S PALACE. 

No American antiquities except, perhaps, the 
Old Mill at Newport, have figured so largely 
in imagination and in print as the pre-historic 
ruins along the Gila River, in Penal County, Ari- 
zona. More than thirty years ago antiquarian 
hearts were deeply stirred by accounts of trav- 
ellers, then very rare, describing the Casas 
Grandes as great cities of hewn stone built in 
a rich and noble architecture like that of Egypt. 
Rhetorical flourishes and bold flights of fancy, 
colored the pictures drawn before the days of 
photography. Communication with this region 
was difficult, and travelling hundreds of miles 
the stories naturally grew along the way, taking 
wider outlines and warmer coloring. The gold 
seekers of California varied their explorations by 
ascending the Gila, almost as unknown to them 
as the White Nile. Rapturous reports came 
back, and for years the Caas Grandes ranked 
with Veii and Karnak. I greatly regret having 
no copy of those Pacific newspapers to compare 
the impressions of the last generation, groping 
in the misty twilight of half-seen wonders, with 
plain facts come to actual sight and touch in the 
light of to-day. 

The walled cities, capable of holding many 
thousand souls, were supplied with water by 
acequias leading from the river. They were rep- 
resented by enthusiastic Bohemians as aque- 
ducts of solid masonry and fairly equal in dura- 
bility and strength to the Maxima Cloaca of 
Rome. Charming traditions embellished the 
beguiling descriptions, lovely myths and airy fa- 
bles floated in the warm, blue silence above the 
218 



The Ruins of Montezuma s Palace, 219 

House of Montezuma, whose lordly name is 
itself a stimulus to imagination. They were the 
work, so ran the tales, of lost races, mysterious, 
invincible, all-conquering, vanished into the voice- 
less past. They had reached a high civilization, 
as the magnificent remains attest, and had passed 
from the earth leaving no sign but colossal ruins, 
no records but strange hieroglyphs, which, en- 
graven on rocks in the neighborhood of the 
Casas, undoubtedly formed their history. 

These mural records are heaps of weather-worn 
rocks and detached boulders covered with figures 
rudely scratched or painted, bearmg signs of great 
age. They possibly served as boundary lines, 
the hieroglyphs being tribal signs of treaties. 
One flighty romancer who understood his own 
language imperfectly, testified that the " pictured 
rocks" were written over with deeply carved in- 
scriptions like the Hebrew, Chaldean and Gothic 
characters. They have been foundation stones 
for imaginary pyramids with sculptured facades, 
which were compared to the temples of Palenque 
and Tuloom, " made of hewn stone so admirably 
fitted they seem * born so' and require neither 
mortar nor clamps." Pottery was found in pro- 
fusion, glazed and painted, always in fragments 
too small and scattered to be fitted together. 
Yet the visionaries likened the miserable scraps 
to ceramics of antique India and the inimitable 
vases of Etruria. 

From the early times the Apache, savagest of 
savages — the red man incurably wild — has swept 
the plains and has held the mountain fastnesses, 
carrying terror and torture from the upper waters 
of the Pecos far into old Mexico. The shadowy 
region, mountain-locked like some vast .strong- 
hold guarded by naked sentinels, was a resistless 
temptation to lovers of the tp.arvellous. The 
deserted cities slowly crumbling down b}- the 



220 The Latid of the Pueblos. 

shallow waters of the Gila must have been the 
work of a people who maintained their supremacy 
in the face of savagery. There was much to stir 
the fancy, ever strongest of flight under skies 
most unknown, in the idea of walled and fortified 
cities in the centre of barbarian hordes, able to 
withstand their warfare and beat back their 
encroachments. Poet, sightseer, archaeologist, 
reporter, padre, missionary, ro\'crs of every sort 
came by turns to the Casas Grandes, and gave 
their impressions in poetic coloring ; and over all, 
like the dreamy mountain haze whose soft 
radiance purples hill and plain, hung a delicious 
mystery. Who should lift the secret veil and 
question the past till it gave back some answer ? 
It was an alluring borderland between civilization 
and barbarism ; on the North American Con- 
tinent the last footing of phantoms peopling the 
unknown, till the whistle of the locomotive, which 
has broken so many illusions, put the pale shades 
to flight, and brushed away the cobweb and rose- 
bloom of the old Spanish poets. 

The Maricopa is a dreary country, arid and 
inhospitable. Even the Mark Tapley of travellers 
observed, while there : '' This is not a jolly place." 
The days are hot as the desert where the White 
Nile rises ; so hot the very lion's manes are burnt 
off. The nights are heavenly. 

The rivers are tricksy streams— sometimes 
wet, sometimes dry — but give enough water to 
irrigate meagre cornfields. Occasionally they 
rise in the very centre of barrenness, flow a mile 
or so, and are lost in the sand ; then rise unex- 
pectedly and run again. 

The season, I remember, was unusually dry. 
Every one described by travellers and official 
papers for whole generations contain that report. 
From this concurrent testimony it is safe t(^ con- 
clude that every season is unusually dry. I 



The Ruins of Montezuma s Palace. 221 

testify that one party was made dry as mummies; 
but, being under bonds to see all that was to be 
seen, we were bound for the Casas Grandes. 

To reach them, we must enter the fabled realm 
of the visionaries ; where the Indian emperor, 
garlanded by beauty, reclining on crimson and 
gold, floated among opal mountains (the name 
still attaches to a snowy range) and far-reaching 
valleys, sown thick with jewels — a region fearful 
to land in, because of the one-horned rhinoceros 
and the monstrous Cibola (buffalo). 

As we walked about while waiting for the am- 
bulance, the Indian men tagged after us, eyeing 
the travellers with their intolerable fixed stare ; 
but the women sat still in their places. There 
was no breeze to stir the air, no changing clouds 
enlivening the bare and brilliant sky, no sound of 
wheels, no tramp of men audible in the sandy 
soil. The isolation was perfect as that of a reef 
in mid-ocean. 

The earth lay in stillness unbroken, and the 
mute and moveless Indian woman was the type 
of a deadness which rests on the land forever. 

Wonderful are the works of an inspired imag- 
ination! This is the region where the West 
Indian king reveled as he sailed, and, like another 
Antony, kissed away kingdoms and provinces 
We had read the chronicles and saw that day the 
favorite of the harem, whose voice was like run- 
ning water in the ear of the thirsty, her step like 
the bounding fawn, her grace like the swaying 
reed, her smile a glance of the Great Spirit. She 
is known in our times as the Pimo Squaw. She 
leaned against a crazy mud wall, which she 
appeared to prop, and was so nearly the same 
shade of clay that at first the statuesque shape 
seemed carved in it. A stumpy figure, nude to 
the waist draped in one buckskin skirt. The 
leathery skin, tanned by long exposure to the 



222 The Land of the Pueblos. 

fierce sun's beat and roughening wind, was 
darkly veined and coarse. To eyes accustomed 
to see in woman's form the fairest of all fair- 
ness — 

" A thing to dream of, not to tell "— 

the sight is not alluring. She was scarcely 
twenty-five years of age ; but the pitiless climate 
(which we are constantly called upon to admire) 
had worn wrinkles in her face deep enough to 
bury her youth in. Her small, shapely feet were 
cased in moccasins ; the slim hands, idly resting 
in her lap, were burnt to a mahogany color (the 
cinnamon tint entirely lost) and knotted with the 
hard work of corn-grinding. Her one ornament 
was a sea-shell, tied round her throat by a deer- 
skin string. 

Nourmahal had a Mongol cast of features — 
narrow button- hole eyes, almost no eye-brows, 
high cheek-bones, thick lips, tattooed chin. As 
the angelic portion of our party (delicately 
referring to the writer) approached for nearer 
view, she made no sign, except to turn the 
dull Chinese eyes, which a short study of 
inscriptions on tea-boxes would give the right 
oblique, and fix them on us with a tireless, 
unwinking gaze. 

The ruins are twenty miles from the villages of 
the Pimos, a branch of the Pueblo Indians, and 
only twelve miles from the town of Florence on 
the South Pacific Railroad. The wagon road 
runs along the Gila Valley, a level bottom of 
varying width with abrupt scarped banks of earth. 
The plain is of a pale gray color, with a low mossy 
grass, its monotony being relieved by groves of 
mezquit, a species of acacia resembling our locust, 
but w ith foliage more delicate and almost shade- 
less. The stunted trees grow branching from 
the ground so low as to be nearly trunkless ; 



The Ruins of Montezuma s Palace. 223 

knotted, gnarled, dwarfed, black of bark, vaster 
of root than of top, yet with a certain grace 
derived from the small emerald green leaves del- 
icately set on trembling fronds. Occasionally a 
val-de-verde appears, a peculiar ai^i striking 
growth of green body, bark, leaf and limb, never 
very large and not over eight inches in diameter; 
and here and there is a prickly pear, twenty 
feet in height, loaded with red, pear-shaped 
fruit. 

The shifting outlines of the Tucson Mountains, 
never five minutes the same, are drawn in perfect 
relief against a sky of unrivalled brilliance; the 
purest sapphire, free from every taint of mist, fog, 
or vapor. The exquisite fineness of the atmos- 
phere shows clearly the high and rugged peaks 
of the Sierra Catarina, and one picture-like sum- 
mit, called Pichaco, overlooks the chain of hills 
below through a veil of dying blue. Close to 
the river's brim the willow tosses its branches in 
the eternal west wind, lightly as a lady's plume, 
and bears a profusion of lilac flowers rarely beau- 
tiful. On the sterile mesa appears the suwar- 
row (Cereus Giganteus) of a peculiar and fantas- 
tic shape, and a wild verbena repeats the shade 
of the far-off hill purples. 

Miles away from the dead cities we struck the 
bed of an ancient acquia, very large and per- 
fectly defined, the main artery by which the river 
bottom, only a mile or so wide here, was irri- 
gated in former times. Mezquit trees, appar- 
ently falling into decay from age, stand in the 
diy, abandoned ditches, whose various branches 
may be traced in every direction, a network of 
irrigating canals. Here and there elevations in 
the plain proclaim the existence of fallen walls ; 
and depressions, from which the earth was used 
to make the adobe are close by. Nearer the city 
of silence, imniense quantities of broken pultery 



224 1^^^ Land of the Pueblos. 

strew the ground, an arrowhead or stone axe 
comes to Hght, and the least excitable visitor 
must admit that the Gila Valley, where desola- 
tion reigns supreme, was once densely populated. 
We have, in addition, the strong testimony of 
adjacent artificial mounds, supposed to have been 
burial places ; but the mythical mines of silver 
and gold laid down on the oldest maps, referred 
to by the oldest missionaries, do not yet appear. 
A popular theory has been held that theCasas 
were habitations of companies of miners who 
worked undiscovered placers hard by. Happily 
this conceit has been exploded. 

The ruins stand on a low, broad mesa, or 
table-land, rising slightly from the main road, 
and are covered by a thicket of mezquit trees 
not exceeding twenty feet in height, but conceal- 
ing the dun-colored walls till we were close on 
them. Passing beyond the leafy screen we saw, 
within the space of one hundred and fifty yards, 
three buildings. Two are battered and decay- 
ing, so ruinous as to baffle the effort of the tour- 
ist to form an idea of their original size, the 
shape being, as in all these remains, a parallel- 
ogram. Their walls were standing sufficiently 
to trace the plan thirty five years ago. 

We bent our steps to the main building, larg- 
est and best preserved, and with a keen sense of 
disappointment beheld the structure so dear to 
archaeologists and known for three centuries as 
the House of Montezuma. Though familiar by 
picture and description, I had thought to find 
some display of regal power in architectural 
grace and finish ; remnants of mouldings, broken 
lines of cornices, and at least one lofty portal 
through which the tawny courtiers might have 
filed in barbaric pomp to salute the Rocky 
Mountain King. It is merely a tremendous 
mud house, on which the centuries have spent 



The Kui7is of Montezuma s Palace. 225 

their strength in vain, standing in the hush of 
utter sohtude, batthng time and the elements. 
Tiiere is nothing picturesque about it. No 
friendly hchen, running creeper or traiHng ivy- 
can hve in this dry dewless air and with tender 
verdure clothe the nakedness of the ragged struc- 
ture. Against the sand blast no wreathing vine 
can cling, and in its embrace soften the mass of 
ugliness harshly outlined against the bare and 
brilliant sky, unflecked by cloud or shadow. 
Our spirits went down, down before the legend- 
ary Palace of Montezuma we had come so far 
to see. For this we had strained over lava beds, 
through the sunburnt ways of the wilderness, 
across valleys of sand, sage desert, and grease- 
wood plain, breathing, eating, drinking alkali, 
and wearing its dust like a dingy travelling suit ! 
Instead of poetry here was certainty. 

The mountain rim was a refreshm.ent to the 
vision. There the aerial hues, so like the stuff 
which dreams are made of, gave the only ideal 
touch to a scene forbiddingly real. No hint of 
beauty or excellence of workmanship is found in 
a near view of the Casa, which is entitled to 
admiration only on account of its age, and to 
a hold on fancy because its origin and uses are 
unkn:)\vn. Desolate and isolated now, time was 
when it was encircled by similar buildings 
grouped in villages scattered broadly over the 
wide plateau. In every direction are broken 
lines of falle;i walls, oblong heaps crumbled 
down to the du:st whence they sprung; and the 
extent of irrigation must have made the valley a 
cultivated garden, or a field of corn large enough 
to sustain a vast population. 

But there was little time for sentiment. Our 

surveys must be made in haste. The walls are 

entirely adobe ; in no portion is there any stone 

used. Instead of the modern Spanish-American 

15 



226 The Land of the Pueblos. 

adobes, moulded to about six times the size of our 
ordinary bricks, this aboriginal "palace" is built 
of large blocks of concrete (called by Mexicans 
tapia), three feet or more in length, by two feet in 
width and thickness. They are of irregular size, 
indicating that a box. or mould was used in the 
manufacture into which the mortar was cast 
where it was to remain in the walls ; and as it 
dried the cases were moved along. A recent 
chemical analysis of the concrete shows the 
secret of its durability under the wasting and 
wearing of ages in a structure certainly a ruin 
for three hundred years, and with a pre-Spanish 
existence of a century and perhaps more. Sev- 
enteen per cent, of the mortar is carbonate of 
lime. Probably lime was burned and mixed 
with the sand and gravel of the country, which 
contains a very adhesive clay, tough and lasting. 
The walls are perpendicular within, slightly 
tapering without, four feet thick, facing the car- 
dinal points of the compass, almost the true 
meridian. The building was fifty-eight feet long 
and forty-three feet wide, the highest point of 
the standing wall bemg thirty-five feet. It was 
originally four or five stories high, being about 
eight feet from floor to ceiling. In the 
centre of each wall were narrow doors for 
entrance into the main compartments, three feet 
wide, five feet high, and growing narrower at the 
top, except the one in the west front, which is 
two feet by seven or eight. Over each door is a 
port-hole whose dimensions I am unable to give. 
The Indian's love of dark houses is apparent 
here ; the only light admitted into the small 
numerous rooms was through these holes in the 
deep walls. The central room, with only one 
opening, must have been as dismal as a dungeon. 
It has been surmised that this was a sort of 
watch-tower, eight or ten feet higher than the 



The Ruins of Montezuma' s Palace. 22 j 

outer stories, probably one story above all the 
rest when the Casa was entire. Some of the port- 
holes have been filled in with mortar as though 
the window, if window it was, admitted too much 
light. 

Father Font, who visited this ruin in 1776, 
writes : " It is perceptible the edifice had three 
stories. The Indians say it had four; the last 
being a kind of subterranean vault. For the 
purpose of giving light to the rooms nothing is 
seen but the doors, and some round holes in the 
middle of the walls which face to the east and 
west, and the Indians said that the Prince, whom 
they called the * Bitter Man,' used to salute the 
sun through these holes (which are pretty large) 
at its rising and setting. All the roofs are burnt 
out except that of one low room, in an adjoining 
house, which had beams, apparently cedar, small 
and smooth, and over them reeds of equal size 
and a layer of hard mud and mortar, forming a 
very curious roof, or floor." 

The different stories are easily identified by the 
ends of beams remaining in the walls, or by the 
holes into which the beams projected. They are 
round rafters of cedar, or sabino, supporting the 
floors, being perhaps six inches in diameter and 
half a foot apart. The nearest mountain bear- 
ing such trees is many a w^eary mile away. The 
charred ends of beams prove that the interior 
was destroyed by fire, but the massive four-foot 
wall suffered no change by flaming floor, rafter, 
or roof. The trees were hacked by a blunt tool, 
probably a stone hatchet ; evidently iron was 
unknown to the architect of Casas Grandes. The 
Indigene substituted for it tempered copper and 
tools of wrought obsidian. A few bone awls, or 
flakers, for making arrow heads, have been dug 
out of the gravel, and a metate, or corn grinder, 



228 The Land of ihe Pzieblos. 

broken jars and a tomahawk of flint, have been 
found, but there is no tracery made by iron. 

Adobe walls are wonderfully durable in this 
dry, equable climate, and with slight repairs last a 
thousand years. Disintegration begins at the base, 
where moisture gathers, and the walls, seamed 
and furrowed near the earth by the action of heavy 
yearly rains, are held together merely by their 
great thickness. Their inner surface is smoothly 
plastered with lime cement, little wrinkled marks 
standing as they appeared when first dried after 
the finish was laid on. There is no sign of 
stairway, and ascent was probably made outside 
on scaling ladders, as the Pueblos go up their 
terraced domiciles throughout New Mexico and 
Arizona. The rough coating without is flaked off 
in some places by the continuous action of war- 
ring winds which carry sand. Even more than 
rain, this incessant agent is operating on the old 
dun-colored adobes, and unless repairs are made 
in the scarred and furrowed foundations, this 
most interesting of antiquities must before long 
become a shapeless wreck. There can have been 
no considerable shock of earthquake in the 
period during which it has been known to us ; 
even a slight tremble would bring the time-worn 
fabric down to hopeless destruction. 

Standing on the mesa, the traveller sees in every 
direction heaps of ruins, of which the Casas Gran- 
des was the centre and principal. About two hun- 
dred yards to the north-west is a circular inclos- 
ure, also a ruin. It is supposed to have been a 
corral for cattle, which, unless, as some assume, 
it was used as a menagerie, would make it of 
more recent date, as the Indians were without 
domestic animals before the conquest. Archi- 
tectural remains have been well called the bal- 
ance wheels of tradition. After actual sight and 
touch there is no room for dreams and visions. 



The Ruins of Montezuma s Palace. 229 

Temples and towers proclaim worship, sculptures 
hint of refinement, wealth and elegant tastes. 
Coins tell of commerce, and frescoes like those 
of Pompeii and Rome are illuminated books of 
Chronicles. 

This antique pile is expressive of a low condi- 
tion of art. Its size is impressive when we con- 
sider that it was completed without the aid of 
domestic animals or iron, but by hand labor 
alone. The only idea left in the mind of the 
visitor is that it was designed to accommodate 
great numbers of persons ; a cumbrous human 
hive. There is no forest growth above it by 
which to date the passage of years ; and the 
ceaseless delving of the archaeologist has failed 
to find a key, accepted by all as the true one, to 
the age and purpose of so remarkable a building. 
Excavations made on an appropriation by the 
Legislature of Arizona resulted in nothing. A 
citizen of Florence reports finding a piece of 
gold resembhng coin in the debris, and it is said 
that a hollow sound has been heard by those 
jumping on the floor of the inner room. Part 
of the walls have fallen, which may account for 
the noise. That ghost is laid and no voice or 
breath of living thing disturbs the dreaming pil- 
grim and baffled antiquarian as in mournful pro- 
cession they carry off their relics — bits of broken 
plaster and pottery. 

The earliest reporters describe eleven buildings 
in close proximity to each other, and there can 
be no reason to doubt their record, judging by 
the high heaps of mud and gravel lying in every 
direction about the great Casa. Compassing it 
is a prostrate wall extending four hundred and 
twenty feet from north to south, and two hun- 
dred and sixty feet from east to west, which they 
believed was a part of the Casa itself — a natural 



230 The Land of the Pueblos. 

mistake which has given many a highly exagger- 
ated idea of the structure inclosed by it. 

The first recorded mention of Casas Grandes is 
made in 1 540, by Captains Diaz and Saldibar, 
who with twelve intrepid men marched from the 
city of Culiacan and ascended the Gila as far as 
Chichiticale, or Red House, on the border of the 
Colorado Desert. They had from friendly 
Indians glowing descriptions of the seven cities 
of Cibola, in which whole streets were said to be 
occupied exclusively by workers in gold and 
silver. " They had sculptured silver and spear 
heads and drinking cups of precious metals." 
Fired by these beguiling fables Coronado led a 
little army of picked men, fifty soldiers, a few 
infantry, his particular friciv s and the monks, in 
search of fairy land, the vanishing seven cities of 
Cibola. His secretary records that when the 
general passed through all the inhabited region to 
the place where the desert begins and saw there 
was *' notliing good," he could not repress his 
sadness notwithstanding the marvels which were 
promised further on. 

The traveller of 1880 has much the same sen- 
sation as that which smote the soul of the dashing 
Coronado of 1540. In the time of the latter the 
whole of the North American Continent east of 
the Rio Grande was called Florida. It is not 
surprising that much inaccurate information pre- 
vailed regarding the geography of Nueva Es- 
pagna, but it is easy to identify Casas Grandes 
with the *' Red House" standing in a mezquit 
jungle on the edge of the desert, the first ruin 
seen on the Gila by one ascending from its 
mouth. In certain lights the walls have a reddish 
tint, and again appear white on account of peb- 
bles contained in the plaster. 

In 1694 Father Kino visited the Casas Grandes. 
He heard traditions of the Pimos running back 



The Ruins of Montezuma s Palace. 23I 

four hundred years ; it had been a ruin for ages, 
and was destroyed by fire in the war with the 
Apaches. '' The principal room in the middle is 
four stories, the adjoining rooms on its four sides 
are of three stories, with walls so smooth and 
shining that they appear like burnished tables. 
At the distance of an arquebuss shot, twelve other 
houses were to be seen, also half fallen, having 
thick walls, and all the ceilings burnt except in 
the lower room of one house." He mentions 
also canals for irrigation, " which had capacity for 
carrying half the water of the river." The good 
priest took peaceable possession of the forsaken 
spot, set up the cross within the drear}/ w^alls and 
made the place a holy shrine with the celebration 
of mass. 

Of the old descriptions that of Father Font, 
who visited the scene in 17/9, is most valuable. 
I regret not having space for a longer extract 
from his journal : " The large house or Palace of 
Montezuma," he says, ''according to the histories 
and meagre accounts of it which we have from 
the Indians, may have been built some 500 
years ago ; for, as it appears, this building was 
erected by the Mexicans when, during their 
transmigration, the Devil led them through 
various countries until they arrived at the 
promised land of Mexico ; and in their sojourns, 
which were ]:nj ones, they formed towns and 
built edifices." He further speaks of ruins in 
every direction. " The land is partially covered 
with pieces of pots, jars, plates, etc." He was 
the first one who discovered that the outer wall 
was a fortification, '' a fence which surrounded this 
house and other buildings." Within the last 
thirty years the Casa de Montezuma has been 
often described, and so much speculation has 
been expended as to its origin and uses that I 
hesitate to- push out into that dark sea. 



232 The Land of the Pueblos. 

There is a succession of ruined cities, forming 
a continuous chain of evidence, from Utah to the 
City of Mexico. I have examined many of these 
dead pueblos and can discover no essential in 
which they differ from each other, from the living 
pueblos now inhabited, or from the Casas Grandes. 
All are community houses, where a whole tribe 
may dwell, built of adobe in the shape of an ob- 
long square around an open court. Inclosing 
this was an outer wall or fortification with towers 
at regular intervals for the posting of sentinels. 
The old pueblos were built on a table land so as 
to afford an outlook for sentries and an oppor- 
tunity for watching depredations on the corn 
lands in the valleys below ; and often at a distance 
are found the remains of a circular watch-tower, 
a signal station near the city. Such are the pre- 
historic vestiges along the TvIcElmo, Colorado, 
San Juan and the Rio Mancos, and the widely 
dispersed remains in the Ehaco and Mancho. 
Such is the solitary watch-tower in the Carion of 
the Hovenweep, Utah. The north ernmostbuild- 
ings discovered in Arizona and Colorado are 
exact copies of the Southern and Moqui pueblos, 
varying with situation and with the quality of 
material used. Generally the earth of the 
country was mixed with ashes and clay. The 
lack of individuality in the Indian race gives you 
the feeling that if you see one you have seen all ; 
so it is in regard to their habitations. The same- 
ness of the remains, and their close likeness to 
the Casas Grandes and the modern buildings, 
must strike the most careless observer. Yet they 
are not more alike than the builders themselves. 

There are few, if any antiquities, that have not 
been searched through and through and reported 
on. The hunter, miner, scout, surveyor, priest and 
sightseer have overlooked no hill or plain where 
there is a trace of human dwelling. Undoubtedly 



The Ruins of Montezuma s Palace. 233 

the adobe houses wherever found are the work 
of a semi-civihzed, agricultural [>eople with whom 
the Spaniards came in conflict, and who are 
described by them as Pueblo, or Town Indians, 
to distinguish them from the nomads or wander- 
ing tribes of the primitive race. An immense 
amount of romance has been wasted on the old 
mud houses, which makes them hardly less won- 
derful than the enchanted city Tiahuanco, 
which was built in a single night by an invis- 
ible hand; but the time is come to put out 
wavering lights and to banish shifting shadows. 

I am convinced that the Palace of Montezuma 
was designed as a fortress, a centre from which 
many villages radiated and to which the inhab- 
itants fled for refuge in a last extremity. The 
hghtness of the floor rafters in the lower story 
precludes the possibility that the building was 
used as a granary. Any one of the many rooms 
full of grain must have crushed the floors, if not 
the Vv^alls themselves. Again, it has been declared 
to have been a temple for the sun worshippers; 
but the smallncss and multiplicity of the rooms 
and the many doors and port holes oppose such 
a surmise, though the dismal central room 
and the circular passages between the rooms 
might suggest priestcraft, and heathen rites and 
sorceries. 

It may have been, hke the castle of the middle 
ages, the nucleus around which the city grad- 
ually grew up, but more probably it rose from 
the needs of the citizens, many of whom must 
have toiled in its erection. For many, many 
years the Apache has harried this land. It is the 
Indian law to destroy all that he cannot carry 
away, and the pottery is always broken, the 
interiors are always fired. The builders of adobe 
houses, wherever found, were open to incursions 
of the same enemy which still infests the Mex- 



234 The Land of the Pueblos. 

icaii border. To me these remains have no new 
meanings. They merely prove that the North 
American Continent has been inhabited from 
a remote period ; something which I believe has 
never been disputed. 

The undated tradition is that the spot which I 
am trying to describe is one of the stopping 
places of Montezuma on his southward march to 
Anahuac. All legends point to an emigration 
from north to south. Coming from the ends of 
the earth, or from fabled Azatlan, the first halt 
the Montezumas made was at old Zuni ; this was 
the second station ; the third was near Chihuahua, 
Mexico, where enormous ruins, exact reproduc- 
tions of these are standing isolated in a luxuriant 
valley, the tottering monuments of a peculiar 
tribe or tribes of a bygone nationality. Nothing 
is to be learned from the natives there, who, like 
all Pueblos, love to call themselves sons of Monte- 
zuma, or from the Mexicans round about What- 
ever requires a moment's thought is dismissed by 
the ever-ready, meaningless, Qiden sabe ? " Who 
knows ?" 



CHAPTER XXV. 

TO THE CASAS GRANDES. 

The Casas Grandes on the Laguna de Guz- 
man in Northwestern Chihuahua are similar in 
every respect to the ruined fortresses of New 
Mexico and Arizona. The points of resem- 
blance are so close and so numerous as to be 
decisive, proving them to be the work of the 
same people under similar, though somewhat 
superior, institutions. On my table is an un- 
broken vase unearthed from this most venerable 





Tesuke Water Vases. 



To the Casus Grandes. 235 

ruin of North America : a veritable antique, 
rare and valuable. It is of a light clay color, 
glazed without and within. The shape, the 
peculiar markings in geometrical lines, white, 
black and maroon red, prove the hand of its 
manufacturer. I should recognize it instantly 
in any collection as a Pueblo Avater jar of ancient 
workmanship, better made than any which we 
have from the Pueblos now. It contains the fol- 
lowing memorandum : " This olla or taiiaja was 
excavated from the ruins of the Montezuma 
Casas Grandes in the State of Chihuahua in the 
year 1864, and according to Indian tradition is 
800 years old. These Casas Grandes (great 
houses) were reduced to ruin, by siege, in 1070." 
This is signed, "William Pierson, American 
Consul in 1873." 

It is the only whole jar and much the finest 
specimen I have ever seen. Still it is greatly 
inferior to the coarsest Wedgwood china in our 
shops. There has never appeared a monument 
or relic proving the existence of a people of 
more advanced culture than the red race with 
which the European cam^e in contact. How the 
peculiar civilization which this vase represents 
came from the North, as every tradition declares 
it did, is a question that has been argued many 
times in many ways. Among a vanquished, 
declining people, without even the lowest forms 
of picture-writing, language rapidly alters; and 
philologists tell us that American languages are 
the most changeful forms of human speech. 
Legends soon become confused; the links of 
connection are easily lost ; and even in its best 
estate tradition is treacherous as memory. 
Scholars hvive held that the adobe houses are 
traces of the Toltecs, the polished predecessors 
of the fierce and bloody Aztecs, under whose 
dominie n the former broke and scattered. Phusi- 



23^ I'he Land of the Pueblos, 

ble theories, more or less conclusive, have per- 
plexed the student of indigenous races. One 
solution, as soon as it was suggested, touched 
me with the force of absolute conviction, because 
it was so direct and simple an answer to the puz- 
zling questions following an examination of the 
antiquities of North America. 

The Pueblo or town-building Indians were the 
skirmish line of the Aztec nation when the 
Mexican Empire was in the height of its great- 
ness. The Aztecs were restless, aggressive, 
greedy of power and insatiate in their lust for 
dominion. To rove and to conquer was the 
national pastime. The green banners of Ana- 
huac floated defiantly in the tropic airs of the 
remotest provinces on the Gulf of Mexico, 
and dauntless warriors upheld their colors in 
pristine splendor along the extreme coasts of 
Honduras and Nicaragua. They formed the 
unshackled, sovereign nation, possessing the 
highest civilization in North America, speaking 
a language by far the most finished and elegant 
of the native tongues, said to be of exceeding 
richness. 

The Pueblos, whom we believe to be a rough 
off-shoot of that stock, degraded descendants of 
haughty princes, are yet a self-sustaining people, 
independent of the Government, the only abor- 
igines among us not a curse to the soil. In some 
old time whereof history is silent and about 
which there are no traditions, nor even the airy 
hand of a misty legend to beckon us back and 
point the way, the half-civilized tribes of Mexico 
must have sought fresh fields for conquest and 
occupation. They probably marched in detached 
clans speaking different dialects, but more or 
less united under one central government, and 
with the arts and means of instruction brought 
from Anahuac they set forth to colonize outly- 



To the Casus Grandes. lyj 

ing countries to the north. A glance at the 
map shows only one route by which they could 
advance. West of the Sierra Madre and up the 
Gila and its tributaries, toward the great carton 
of the Colorado, colonies were planted along the 
river banks, and possibly the emigrant fraternized 
with the native. Captain Fernando Alarcon dis- 
covered the Rio Colorado in 1 540, and passed 
various tribes v/ithout being able to communi- 
cate with them, except by signs, until he reached 
a people Avho understood the language of an 
Indian whom he had brought from Mexico. 
From this tribe he learned of a similar people, 
far to the eastward, who lived in great houses 
built of stone. From Mexico the Southerners 
brought the art of building with adobe and with 
stones laid in mud mortar, which alone distin- 
guishes them from the tribes dwelling in wig- 
wams, shifting tents and lodges of buffalo skins 
and boughs. There was a system of communi- 
cation between their fortified towns, worn foot- 
paths betraying a constant coming and going, 
and deep trails furrowed by the tread of busy 
feet through centuries. 

The ancient builders invariably chose com- 
manding positions overlooking their cultivated 
fields for their pueblos, and added story after 
story to the houses, usually terraced from with- 
out, where a few defenders could defy almost 
any number of assailants with savage arms. 
Apaches were treated as barbarian hordes. 
There is no mention of these Bedouins until a 
century after Coronado's day, from which fact 
we may infer that they were kept at bay. 

Gradually the tide of emigration pressed up 
to the Aztec Mountains and San Francisco 
Peaks, but there the march of the victorious 
invader was suddenly stopped by a barrier ut- 
terly impassable — the canons of the Colorado 



238 The Land of the Pueblos. 

and Chiquito Rivers, which, united, form a gulf 
at least 300 miles long, and which in places are 
a mile in depth. It lay directly across their 
course, a stupendous chasm which wings only 
would have enabled them to cross. No sea or 
desert could so effectually have hindered their 
progress northward. They turned toward the 
East, took possesion of the rich valleys of the 
Colorado and Chiquito, where streets of towns 
and irrigating canals are still traceable for miles, 
and followed its branches to their sources. All 
the towns are along the river. The bottom 
lands are fertile with alluvial deposits. There 
are large cotton-wood trees and impenetrable 
thickets of arrow and greasewood among the 
numberless lagoons and sloughs which, at the 
annual rise of the ri/er, are filled to overflowing 
and irrigate the soil. But no vegetation can 
live beyond the limit of these overflows. A 
white efflorescence covers the ground, where it 
is useless to plant, where nothing edible for man 
or beast will grow. 

On the neighboring streams the chiefs founded 
the kingdom of Cibola, where now we see exten- 
.-^ive ruins attesting the size of the old towns, all 
of which were fortified and built on the same 
general plan. Old Tuni was the capital city, set 
on a hill of rock and reached only by one zigzag 
path, where a handful of soldiers could defy the 
cavalry of the world. In a similar condition the 
ruins of the seven Moqui villages are found, and 
North of them is the site of an adjacent colony. 
To the north-east they moved from the head of 
Flax River to the southern tributaries of the San 
Juan, the Canon de Chaco and the Valle de 
Chelly, '* where," says Lieutenant McCormick, 
"half a million mi dit have lived," being strewn 
v/i'-h the ruins of dead cities. 

At last, by following up the headwaters of the 



To the Casas Grandes. 239 

Rio de San Juan to the Colorado Mountains, 
they penetrated the Rio Grande Valley, a fertile 
and widely extended region destined to be sub- 
dued and colonized. From this point their 
imperious course was down the valley from the 
north, as all traditions point ; and, naturally, the 
conquerors built a vast stronghold at Taos to 
protect that beautiful valley from attacks of the 
w^ild tribes, mainly Utes — a gloomy, forbidding 
citadel of savage aspect, set on a hill overlooking 
the Rio Grande. So strong a retreat is it that 
in 1847, when the Mexicans of the modern vil- 
lage of Taos could no longer defend themselves 
against the armies of the United States, they fled 
to this abandoned pueblo, a few miles distant, and 
there sustained a protracted siege, yielding fin- 
ally when provisions utterly failed. The grim 
and threatening fortress was never captured by 
the Spaniards, though many times attacked. 
The terraces bristled with spears and battle-axes, 
through the little windows arrows were show- 
ered, and stones and burning balls of cotton 
dipped in oil were hurled from slings. The 
lower story, a well-filled granary — and the cis- 
terns within the court, enabled the red men *' to 
laugh a siege to scorn." 

The route which we have rapidly sketched 
was discovered and maintained by the armies of 
many generations ; the changes described in a 
paragraph were brought about by wars lasting 
through ages. Well did those migratory tribes 
know the fierce delight of battle which thrills 
alike the blood of the white man and the red, when 
once within the heat and fury of its deadly 
charm. 

In the course of time the entire valley of the 
Rio Grande from latitude 37° to latitude 32°, a 
distance of over 400 miles, was thickly settled. 
It must have been a scene of constant activity, 



240 The Land of the Pueblos. 

with its clusters of towns, whose streets are yet 
plainly visible and may be followed for miles ; 
and becoming the dominant nation, in the 
main valley where the villages are nearest to 
each other, the Aztecs found it unnecessary to 
fortify their dwelling places. Out-lying settle- 
ments, such as Pecos and Grand Quivira, in the 
country swept by Comanches and Arapahoes, 
and Laguna and Acoma, near the Navajos, were 
defended by outworks like those in the Colorado 
basin. 

Near El Paso are widespread ruins of the pre- 
historic epoch, and it is so short a march from 
that crossing to the lovely and productive valley 
of Rio Corralites and its lake, the Laguna de 
Guzman, that it is most reasonable to suppose 
the cases on this stream were built by a colony 
from that region. The Indians and Mexicans 
of our day are exactly right in asserting that the 
** great houses " are the work of Montezumas 
who came from the North, and at various stations 
fortified themselves against the roving tribes. So 
it comes that the Town Builders of New Mexico 
and Arizona, who are without history or hiero- 
glyphic writing, have no record or even legend 
of the dim and distant starting point wlien the 
exodus from Mexico began. They brought a 
species of civilization quite foreign to the nomads 
who confronted them, battled for supremacy, and 
disputed their sway. The civilization was nec- 
essarily inferior to that of the source whence 
it sprung. This is the condition in all migratory 
movements. The wealthy, cultured classes are 
conservative, slow to change ; the dissatisfied 
spirits, adventurers with little to leave or to take, 
strike out of the beaten paths in hope of better- 
ing their fortunes. 

The colonial beginnings were a poor represen- 
tation of the splendors of Tezcuco where North 



To the Casas Grandes. 241 

American civilization, under the commanding 
genius of the second Montezuma, reached its 
height. But the pilgrims brought with them glo- 
rious memories. They must have seen the sacred 
city Cholula, with its 400 temples, its huge pyra- 
mid, wrought by the giant Haloc, nearly 200 feet 
high, the sides measuring 450 yards at its base. It 
was a terraced tower, a landmark, a beacon and a 
shrine to all Anahuac, where the smoke from 
the undying altar-fires went up as incense to the 
gods, new every morning and fresh every even- 
ing. There were no writhing victims on that hill 
of sacrifice ; the gentle Quetzelcoatt delighted 
not in blood ; his offerings were bread and roses 
and all sweet perfumes. The townsmen in their 
new homes built council-houses, meagre and 
poverty-stricken compared with the Southern 
temples, and kindled the sacred fires. Each vil- 
lage had one or more of these estufas, where 
holy rites were conducted in the utmost secrecy. 
A priesthood of chosen warriors, consecrated to 
the ministry, watched the altar-fire, and it was 
never suffered to die out. 

In all probability the later emigrants brought 
with them the Montezuma idol. Possibly some 
had been in the kneeling ranks of those who 
kissed the earth at the sound of conch and ata- 
bal which heralded the approach of the great 
king, the child of the sun. Hardly had they 
dared to lift their eyes, before the splendor of the 
canopy of green featherwork fringed with spark- 
ling pendants, which shaded his jewelled plumes. 
They could not fail to remember the floating 
robes of gorgeous dyes, the blazing arms making 
the glance dizzy with the shining of precious 
stones ; and, best of all, that princely presence in 
the midst of worshipping subjects, who heldthcm- 
selves but as dust beneath the golden soles of 
the royal satidals. They could not forget the 



242 The Land of the Pueblos. 

wall of orbed shields about his sacred person, 
the keen sparkle of burnished spear tips, the fly- 
ing flags of various colors which the Indian 
loves so well, and the shouts of thousands on 
thousands c-f loyal subjects who counted not 
their lives dear unto themselves but for their 
service to their emperor. The all- conquering 
Montezuma was at first only a proud memory. 
By degrees a halo and a light appeared round the 
name of the king of kings. Men love to trace 
their descent back to some storied greatness, and 
all barbarous nations delight to associate their 
origin with the deities. The yearning to be as 
gods, is one of the instinctive impulses of the 
human heart. It began in Eden and is as old as 
the first man. 

From reverence of the compelling spirit which 
left its imprint on vast regions, various tribes and 
long periods of time, it is easy to pass to adora- 
tion. The valley of the Rio Grande was once a 
valley of gods ; they breathed in the winds, 
frowned in the storms; their wrath was the 
earthquake and their smile was fair weather. 
The central idea ceaselessly recurring in the 
pantheistic religion of the Pueblos of the nine- 
teenth century is the shining figure of Monte- 
zuma, and their belief in his return is the dearest 
of all their faiths. As in the Greek legends, we 
cannot define the line between myth and history, 
but we are forced to believe so widespread a 
religion must have had a beginning remote from 
the degraded, broken-hearted creatures who pray 
to him daily. The dim memories of a great past 
never quite fade away from among any people. 
The dreamy, mythical, departed grandeur of 
their ancestors has led the Pueblos to the hope 
of a restoration ; for with them the vague past 
and the indefinite future are both better than the 
dull, tame present. The hope in every breast, 



To the Casas Grandes. 243 

slow to die, if indeed it ever dies, looks to a regen- 
eration, a lifting up of the bowed race so nurci- 
lessiy stricken down by the Spaniards. The 
caciques who guard the sacred fires watch at 
the daybreak for the second coming of the law- 
giver, prophet and priest, and pray with faces 
toward the sun-house where he takes his kingly 
rest in the abode of his fathers. In the golden 
dawn of some morning, fairest where all are fair, 
he shall push back the curtains of his tabernacle 
intolerably bright, and with roll of drums, music 
of reeds and beauty of banners shall return to his 
own again. 

It is the tendency, even in carefully recorded 
annals, to make one man the doer of all heroic 
deeds. The unnamed dead live in the life of one 
king of men. The lesser lights wane and pale 
before its splendor, and finally all mingle in a 
resplendent focus, and one immortal stands for- 
ever the representative of the '"poch, a sceptred 
deity. Such are the demigods of Southern Eu- 
rope: such is the fair-haired Odin of the mead- 
drinking warriors in sheepskin and horsehide; 
such is King Arthur, gone away under promise 
to return from 

The island valley of Avilion, 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly. 

And such is the Messiah of the Town Builders, 
brother of the sun, equal of the one Omnipotent 
God, uncreated and eternal, whose name it is 
death to utter. 

Tried by the delicate test of language, there is 
no analogy between the modern Town Builder 
and the Mexican of the South ; but this is not 
conclusive. Centuries of changing environment 
work miraculous changes in any people. How 
much is the modern Briton like his ancestor, the 
cave dweller, clad in skins of the beasts which 



244 1^^^ Land of the Pueblos. 

almost shared his den, living on roots and bow- 
ing down at strange altars ? Even in the same 
generation, in the best age of the most enli'f^bt- 
ened of kingdoms, how much does the liish 
gentleman resemble his degraded tenant, the 
peat-digger ? Nay, they can scarcely compre- 
hend each other's speech. Of the heroes, num- 
bered by hundreds of thousands, who upheld our 
victorious banner during the great Rebellion, how 
many names will remain at end of the year 2880? 
Possibly one. The least observant traveller 
through the country of the Pueblos must notice 
that it has changed for the worse since the "great 
houses" were built. They stand on the rim of 
the Colorado Desert, and if we accept the theory 
of the geologists that this is the dry bed of an 
inland sea, the climate must once have been very 
unlike what it is now — waterless ten months of 
the year, and at summer noon as hot and as sti- 
fling as the air of a limekiln. Scientists unite in 
testifying that the rainfall west of the Rio Grande 
is much less than formerly. The present streams 
are shrunken threads of those which once flowed 
in their channels when forests were more abun- 
dant. Northern Arizona has hills whose bases 
are covered with dead cedar trees, immense belts 
untouched by fire, proving that the conditions 
friendly to the growth of vegetation are restricted 
to narrowing limits. Spots that have been pro- 
ductive are barren ; springs gushed from the 
ground which at present is dry and parched, and 
an agricultural people has lived where now no 
living being could maintain existence. Every- 
thing indicates that this region was formerly 
better watered. Many rivers of years ago are 
now rivers of sand, and the Gila at its best, after 
gathering the confluent streams, San Pedro and 
Salado, is not so large in volume as an Indiana 
creek. Ethnologists try to prove that the 



To the Casas Grandes. 245 

Town Builders came from the extreme North, 
perhaps originally from Kamtchatka, and that 
the adobe houses and Montezuma worship were 
of indigenous growth, founded by the monarch 
who bears the proudest name in Indian history. 
There are no Pueblos North of the thirty- 
seventh parallel, and the decline of the race 
began long before the Spanish invasion. It will 
be remembered that the Casas Grandes was a roof- 
less, crumbling ruin, without a history more 
than 300 years ago. The Pueblos must have 
been a mighty nation in the prime of their 
strength, and legends of their ancient glory 
before they passed under the hated Spanish yoke 
are cherished among the different tribes. Re- 
duced as they were in numbers and power, their 
battle for freedom was a long and gallant strug- 
gle. They were finally brought into subjection, 
even to the Moquis who lived perched in tiny 
houses on scarred, seamed cliffs of volcanic rock, 
where nature's fires are burnt out, in a barren 
country, arid and inhospitable, absolutely worth- 
less to v/hite men. 

Never was life so lonely and cheerless as in 
the desolate hovels of the Moquis. Their land 
is not a tender solitude, but a forbidding desola* 
tion of escarped cliffs, overlooking wastes of 
sand where the winds wage war on the small 
shrubs and venturesome grasses, leaving to the 
drouth such as they cannot uproot. A few 
scrubby trees, spotting the edge of the plain as 
if they had looked across the waterless waste 
and crouched in fear, furnish a little brushwood 
for the fires of the Moquis, who are fighting out 
the battle for existence that is hardly worth the 
struggle. Fixed habitation anywhere implies 
some sort of civilization. The flinty hills are 
terraced, and by careful irrigation they manage 
to raise corn enough to keep body and soul 



246 The Land of the Pueblos. 

together. The seven villages within a circuit of 
ten miles have been isolated from the rest of the 
world through centuries, yet they have so little 
intercourse with each other that their tribal lan- 
guages, everywhere subject to swift mutations, 
are entirely unlike. Diminutive, low-set men 
wrapped in blankets passively sitting on the bare, 
seared rocks in the sun, are the ghastly proprie- 
tors of a reservation once the scene of busy 
activities. They number only 1,600 souls; 
shreds of tribes almost exhausted, surrounded 
by dilapidated cities unquestionably of great 
antiquity. The sad heirship of fallen greatness 
is written in the emptiness of their barren estates. 
Fragments of pottery are profusely scattered 
about ; and deeply- worn foot-paths leading from 
village to village, down the river bank and wind- 
ing up to the plain, mark the ancient thorough- 
fares which are now slightly trodden or utterly 
deserted. 

How the Indians were enslaved and driven to 
the mines, and how they perished there by thou- 
sands, is a matter of familiar history. They 
were an abject and heart-broken people after the 
Conquest, and their decline still goes steadily on. 
Whole tribes are extinct. Others have united 
with each other for safety, and within the mem- 
ory of citizens of Santa Fe the feeble remnant 
of the tribe at Pecos joined that at Jemez, which 
speaks the same language. 

After all, the question is not so much whence 
they come as whithei they go. The human family 
is never at rest ; its condition is one of change. 
From the beginning nations and peoples have 
come and gone — vanished, where ? Who knows ? 
Who cares ? They moved forward in the resist- 
less march, served the end for which they were 
created, died and were forgotten. They come 
like shadows, so depart. Across these desolate 






r 




Pueblo Wristlets, Moccasins, etc. 



To the Casas Grandes. 247 

Rocky Mountain ranges a turbulent stream of 
humanity once ebbed and flowed in perpetual 
unrest. Then there were tribes chasing, tribes 
fleeing, nation rising up against nation, scattering, 
absorbing, driving each other into annihilation ; 
and the hills echoed the triumphant music of the 
scalp dances over the graves of slain thousands. 
The history of those mighty turmoils and revo- 
lutions must remain forever unwritten. The 
present aborigines are but a forlorn wreck of 
what they were in the long ago, when mountain 
princes from the South were supreme rulers in a 
realm of confederacies, whose boundaries cannot 
be measured. 

The civilization of the Town Builders is not 
so much overthrown as it is worn out. Their 
bows are broken, their fires burn low ; and the 
sluggish, stolid sons of Montezuma creep at a 
petty pace " along the way to dusty death." The 
inroads of warring bands are not fatal as their 
own system of communism. A closely-kept 
people must become eflete ; and marriage within 
the forbidden degrees, for ages on ages, produces 
a diminutive, emasculate growth. In the tribes 
most isolated, where race distinctions are sharply 
drawn, this blood degeneration is most apparent. 
Very many are scrofulous, and albinos with pink 
^yo:?, and wiry, white hair (strange sights !) are 
frequent among the Zunis and Moquis. Physi- 
cians tell us that it is a species of American 
leprosy, consequent on the poverty of blood 
through lack of alien infusion. 

The weakening of this most interesting na- 
tionality resembles the quiet decline of one 
stricken in years. As in the empire, so in the 
individual ; according to the predetermined doom 
it cannot last, another must have its place. A 
peculiar people, utterly lacking in self asser- 
tion, through* whole decades living in servitude 



248 The Land of the Pueblos. 

under an enforced religion, they have run their 
race, worked out their destiny, and in the de- 
crepitude of extreme old age, ruins and tribes, 
the dead and the dying, are crumbHng away 
together. 



CHAPTER XXVL 

A FRONTIER IDYL. 

Our picnic was in the month of May and we 
started from Santa Fe in the early morning. On 
three sides the drowsy old town is guarded by 
mountains royal with purple and glittering with 
gold. Thirty miles away one snowy peak 
seemed an airy tent let down out of heaven, and 
across it the breeze blows as freshly as airs 
across Eden when the world was young. 

The road wound beside the little river Santa 
Fe, whose waters go softly, after rippling down 
in icy cascades from a lake pure as Tahoe, 
formed by melting snows from the mountain top. 
Along its margin the red willow tosses its 
branches lightly as a lady's plume, and back in 
the hill country the pine-trees sigh to each other 
their never ceasing song. Over the rocks 
clambering goats look down and shake their 
beards at the traveller, and the tinkle of a bell 
falls pleasantly on the ear as Mexican boys drive 
their flocks to the river ; and where the sheep 
are drinking an Indian woman carrying a black 
jar on her head, erect and stately, comes to wash 
her poor rags in the stream. 

It is all like the old Bible pictures. The 
somber landscape though sadly lacking color is 
serene and pastoral, — so filled with the beauty 
of peace and restful silence we thought of the 



A Frontier Idyl. 249 

ancient pilgrims journeying in the shining white 
light of the Delectable Mountains, and their talk 
with loving shepherds by the wayside. No fear 
of rain to spoil our pleasure ; there will not be 
one drop, nor is there even dew. Yesterday we 
breathed balm and incense ; to-morrow we know 
will be just like to-day. The south wind has 
" quieted the earth," and the blue overhead is 
v/ithout spot of cloud, vapory mist or fog. 

Our party was quite large. In advance a well 
mounted Lieutenant, in the glory of his first 
shoulder straps, rode close to the bridle rein of a 
young girl whose flying veil gave short glimpses 
of a beautiful face lighted with eyes of radiant 
hazel and the brightest- smiles. They were a pair 
of lovers, loved by us at first sight. In an 
ambulance came a stout lady with color rather 
high than delicate, whose unhappy bonnet would 
not stick to her head but kept slipping down her 
back. Beside her sat a weak woman from Illi- 
nois, born tired and unable to find time to rest 
since that wearisome date, having barely life 
enough to be proud of her ten-year-old Rosa as 
though children were the rarest things in the 
world. On a little burro, or donkey, was a 
school teacher without special escort, but looked 
after by a dry old bachelor who had one romance 
in his life and still wore the miniature of a face, 
dearly loved and early lost, which has been only 
dust thirty years. For the old love's sake he 
treated all women with delicate reserve, seeing 
in them kinship to the lost ideal they in some 
sort represent A dream unbroken, for where 
death sets his seal the imprint is eternal and 
endureth forever. Then there rode along a 
blonde and pensive artist, the author of many 
rejected manuscripts, who carried sketching 
paper and a neat box of pencils. He wore his 
hair long and boots small, smoked cigarettes in- 



250 The Land of the Pueblos. 

cessantly, and eyed the gay Lieutenant in bitter- 
ness of soul. Several light carriages whirled 
past us ; and Brown, the photographer, dashed 
by on his own buckboard drawn by gallant gray 
mules. I had only time to notice the stranger 
beside him had the blackest eyes and wore a 
diamond ring of unusual size and brilliance 
which blazed in the sunlight as he courteously 
lifted his hat. Among the last to appear was an 
alumnus from Colorado College, who had elec- 
trified the whole board of trustees with his 
graduating speech entitled, " The Centennial 
State — a Nation's Benediction." This callow 
youth had made the eastern tour, had a nodding 
acquaintance with the crowned heads of Boston, 
"and in conscious superiority overshadowed his 
companion, the Baptist minister, one of the 
meekest spirits that ever starved its way to 
heaven. 

The army ambulance moved slowly through 
the sandy red soil but we did not care; the 
mountains — how grand they are ! — were a per- 
petual delight. The fineness of the atmosphere 
gave exquisite tints to the near foothills and the 
vast horizon. Clusters of wild verbenas purpled 
the plain — a deeper shade of the far away hill 
purples — and strange flov/ers, yellow and pink, 
nestled in the short, moss-like grass. They 
never felt dew or rain, yet they did not appear 
stunted or starved, but looked up brightly in the 
sterile sand as from a garden bed. 

Now and then a Pueblo Indian strode silently 
across our way, and a Mexican in picturesque 
striped blanket saluted us in Spanish fashion 
v/Ith a " Buenos dias scnorasl'' as he drove his 
cruelly loaded donkey toward the city. Lazy 
Mexicans squatted in rows sunned themselves 
against the low walls of their houses ; and on a 
chimney a flock of pigeons tamely perched, and 



A Frontier Idyl. 251 

watched the movements of a mower cutting the 
grass which grew scantily on the flat mud roof of 
his miserable hut. 

When we reached the chosen ground a fire 
was already kindled from the resinous boughs of 
the pinon, and lovers were straying off in shady 
places to find out what words the daisies are 
saying to youth and beauty. 

Brown, the photographer, introduced his guest, 
a fine old Spaniard named Oreto. Fie wore the 
easy air of a man familiar with good society, and 
the lofty courtesy which marks the true Castilian, 
I may say the true gentleman, anywhere. He 
claimed to be hidalgo — literally, son of a Goth — 
by which is meant pure Catholic Spanish blood, 
without a taint of Jew or Moor ; was educated 
at Salamanca, and by training conservative was 
quick to denounce Castelar and his politics as 
highly pernicious. In a quiet way he was a 
great talker ; the flashing e\'es alone betrayed 
the intensity of his feeling, and as no one entered 
into debate with him, he fell to extolling the 
glory of old Castile. Gradually the whole party 
was attracted to him, and he became the centre 
of a circle of interested listeners. 

The fair rider with fluffy curls blown by the 
mountain breeze against the arm she leaned on, 
bent forward and asked, " Why leave your OAvn 
country for this wild New World? " 

" It is long to tell the state troubles which 
drove me from home and made me a wanderer, 
for out of Spain every land is exile ; too long for 
even a summer day." 

*' But not too long for our interest," she 
answered with a charming animation ; " you are 
alone in life," she added with a glance at the 
band of mourning crape on \\\s sombrcj'o. 

" Catalina and my niiiita are with the saints," 
— he crossed his breast reverently. " When I 



252 The Land of the Pueblos. 

laid them in the vault at Valladolid my heart 
felt heavy and cold. I thought the long voyage 
and sight of new places might warm it, and I 
might find some diversion, or as our neighbors 
over the Pyrenees say ' distraction,' by imitating 
my ancient countryman in a chase after * the 
fountain of youth. ' " 

" That is in our own hearts." said Romeo, 
with an arch glance at Juliet. 

" Yes, so experience teaches. I am last of my 
name and house, and" — his voice sunk mourn- 
fully — " I had buried the v/ife of my youth, whom 
I loved with a great love, after we had lived 
together twenty years." 

He sighed and turned his eyes toward the 
mountain-top shining like silver in the keen, 
clear light, and the artist fell to sketching Oreto's 
profile. 

'* Time is the great consoler," said the languid 
lilinoisian, trying to adapt her harsh English to 
the spoken music of the stranger. A southern 
sky makes a gentle voice, and the Spanish tongue 
has a matchless trick of melting all it touches 
into a melody. 

^^La SeTiora is most kind, but it is too late ; 
the heart has no second spring. Do you see the 
white line down the mountain-side? " he asked, 
abruptly changing the subject evidently painful 
to dwell upon. 

" Yes, it is a brook rising in a spring, cold as 
ice, clear as glass." 

" Then, instead of my dull, sad story let me tell 
you the tradition of the Blue Fountain, the name 
of the spring, — Fontaine- bleu ^ as the French 
Fathers used to call it." 

*' By all means; a story, a story ! " the ladies 
cried in chorus. 

*' You do me proud," said Oreto with a sweep- 



A Frontier Idyl. 253 

ing bow, " and since you honor me with your 
attention I promise not to weary it." 

We disposed ourselves in various attitudes 
about the speaker. The rising generation gath- 
ered in graceful groups under the stunted pines, 
and the setting generation sat on buffalo robes 
and cushions against the gnarled and twisted 
trunks of the piTwnes. Little Rosa was coaxed 
to her mother's lap, and the stout lady reclined 
on the back seat of the ambulance, loosened her 
bonnet strings and made herself extremely com- 
fortable while we listened to the 

LEGEND OF THE BLUE FOUNTAIN. 

^'Once upon a time," the Spaniard began, with 
his grave smile, "away to the North in the 
country you call Montana lived a young Indian 
hunter, tall and straight and very handsome. 
From boyhood he had heard stories of happy 
hunting-grounds where the pastiiras were always 
fresh and game was always in sight. So one 
bitter cold morning he put on his snow-shoes 
and fur mittens, wrapped himself in his warmest 
bearskin, and struck southward, following the 
stony mountain ranges till he reached this lone- 
some region." 

" Did he travel all alone ? " asked little Rosa. 

" Only the travelling winds went with him. 
But he did not know what fear is, though at 
night he heard the coyote's cry, the bellowing 
of the bison and the huwl of the prairie wolf 
The sun, which he worshipped, shone friendly all 
the way ; gradually the breeze blew softer, the 
earth .grew warmer and greener. After one long 
day's march he drank deep of the spring in yon 
hillside, laid his bent bow and quiver of arrows 
on the rock, and went to sleep in the soft warm 
sand by the Blue Fountain, 



254 The Land of the Pueblos, 

"An Indian warrior sleeps lightly, and in his 
slumber appeared a form — a woman's, such a 
shape as is seen nowhere but in dreams and 
Andalusia." The stranger paused and looked 
dreamily on the ground like one busy with 
memory, and in sympathy I thought of the lost 
Catalina and the little one lying in the gloomy 
vault of Valladolid. We respected his silence, 
and after a moment he continued : 

" The spirit spoke to the dreamer in words of 
infinite tenderness, and appeared to watch and 
guard him. On waking he took a long draught 
of the cool snow water, and gazed searchingly 
into its blue depths." 

"Was it really blue ? " broke in Rosa. 

"Sky blue and silver," said the Castilian, 
adding one of the endearing diminutives in which 
his language is so rich and which I did not quite 
comprehend. " Many times he tried to catch a 
glance of the fairy face which came into his sleep, 
making it better than any waking. Long he 
gazed into the watery mirror; it reflected only 
his own tawny face and the spotless sky above 
it. The white sand boiled from unknown depths 
below, bubbles came to the top and broke on 
the stony brim, but the ceaseless gush and flow 
of the waters was a chime in his ears without 
meaning. 

" He lingered about this spot, so runs the tale, 
many weeks, praying for the appearance of the 
water maiden. She came into his sleep but 
never blest his waking eyes, and when the rainy 
season, which is so very di^ary, set in, the disap- 
pointed youth went back to his tribe. The 
vision haunted him ; in vain he tried to 
shake it off; the vega, so lone, so dim, so untrod- 
den, was filled with strange enchantment. The 
brook went flowing through his memory, glanc- 
ing now in sun, now in shad®w, as it gushed 



A Fro fitter Idyl. 255 

from the mountain side, vanishing at last like 
fairy gold in the sand.. The laughing girls of 
the tribe tried to rouse him from indifference, 
but could not stir him to join in their songs and 
games. In the time of the corn harvest the 
present of a blood-red ear, the Indian's rose 
d'amour, did not move him to any feeling, and 
he turned with glance averted from the flying 
feet in the bewitching cachina dance. 

" ' He is moonstruck,' said the girls ; 'give him 
the crooked ear, for the fool is fit for nothing 
but to sit in the sun with the very old men.' " He 
heeded neither jest nor laugh, and determined 
to come back to the Blue Fountain. When he 
set out an airy figure seemed to go before and 
beckon him on, as the swan maidens of the 
German lakes beckon young knights into their 
little boats drawn by snowy swans harnessed 
with silver chains. 

" Southward, southward he strode, following 
the ancient march of Azatlan, and, in sight of 
the beloved spring, he climbed the steep, fleet 
and untired as the red deer, to find the same 
sparkling fountain, and the shining brook below 
it running into the valley as it will run on for- 
ever. 

"Again he lay down on the soft, warm sand, 
and once more the delicate phantom appeared to 
his closed eyes, whispered gently in his ear, and 
bent above his head as i) to kiss him." 

Here the lovers " changed eyes," leaned a 
trifle closer together, and I saw Romeo pick up 
a blue ribbon dropped from Juliet's sleeve and 
slip it into his watch pocket. 

" Then a frantic love took possession of the 
hunter. Day after day, night after night, his 
wasting form was laid beside the singing cas- 
cade; ever he sighed, murmured, dreamed. The 
strength left^ his limbs, his blood beat hotly; 



256 The Land of the Pueblos. 

summer waned and cold winds blev/, but never 
cooled the fever of his brow. Sometime? after a 
day's hunt, returning at evening he fancied he saw 
a misty outline against the dark steep, but it melted 
away as he neared it and instead of a living woman 
he reached out to clasp the empty air. Then the 
warrior began to understand this water spirit 
was of the race of Souls, and as such could not 
wed a mortal; to possess her, therefore, he must 
be like her — must die. Sc one day when the 
world was all bright and his soul all dark, while 
she sung a song of wonderful music he stretched 
his arms to reach the shadowy siren and plunged 
from the black ledge you see yonder into the 
unknown depths below." 

" And was he never heard of afterward ? " 
asked Juliet, while the roses on her cheek deep- 
ened in betrayal of her thoughts. 

" Never, hermosura,'' said the Spaniard with 
an admiring gesture, "but old Pueblos about 
here say two shapes rise out of the spring where 
there used to be but one, float in the air and 
hover above it. They are oftenest seen about 
dusk in the rainy season. I have never seen 
them myself" 

" I wonder if they do show that way," said 
Rosa with a puzzled face. 

" Qidcn sabe^' said Oreto mysteriously, at the 
same time handing her the kernel of a piTion nut 
which he cracked in his white front teeth. 

And here let me record that the words ''Quiai 
sabe,'' " who knows," are the end of controversy, 
the finish of debate, the limit of human under- 
standing, having a very different meaning accord- 
ing to the persons speaking. With Oreto it was 
as much as to say, there is room for argument 
on both sides. 

All this time our stew had been simmering, 
gypsy fashion, over the fire, keeping a friendly 



A Frontier Idyl. 257 

and impatient knocking at the pot lid, and wa? 
now pronounced done. The stout lady roused 
up from her nap, set her bonnet bias across her 
eyebrows, said she was glad the young Comanche 
came to his senses at last, and then addressed 
herself to the making of coffee. 

I met Oreto frequently, and never saw him 
unbend from the Hamlet air — " Man delights 
not me, no, nor woman either," — except on this 
one holiday. So to speak, he flavored the whole 
picnic. He gayly insisted on seasoning every 
dish. *'Iwill not ruin the olla for Am.ericans, 
with too much red pepper," he said ; " the 
merest soupcofi, as the French put it." Then he 
contrived a nice, cool-looking salad from some 
crisp leaves, to me unknown, and served it with 
a deftness and tact that would have graced a 
courtier. To tell the whole truth, the elegant 
Castilian had so much manner it was rather 
fatiguing to keep up with him. 

Dinner over, he took a large silk handkerchief 
and showed how two prisoners of the Inquisi- 
tion were once knotted together with ropes, and 
allowed their freedom if they could untie them, 
trying the puzzle on the lovers, who, of course, 
struggled violently to be free, — I need hardly 
add without success. Had he experimented on 
some of the married couples possibly the result 
might have been different. Following this was 
a gay barcarole about strolling on the Prado, 
glancing eyes, winged feet and envious veils. 
*' It should have castanets in the chorus ; if Seiior 
Brown will lend me his hat it will answer." 

Thus appealed to, the photographer could not 
choose but offer his brand new stovepipe to his 
guest,, who thumped it vigorously, greatly to 
Seiior Brown's annoyance, who stood looking 
foolish, bareheaded in the sunshine. And again 
17 



258 The Land of the Pueblos. 

I marked the size and lustre of the diamond 
ring. 

The singer's voice was a trifle cracked, but 
we were not fastidious, the ladies hung on every 
word, and when the song ended, the applause 
was hearty and genuine. The blonde artist pro- 
duced a flute which luckily for us had a missing 
joint, and insinuated he could be prevailed upon 
to sing; but we knew "The Raven" would be 
his doleful strain and upon the hint no one 
spoke. 

" Now a thousand pardons," said Oreto, " for 
consuming your time and courtesy, I must 
have a siesta^ without which you know a 
Spaniard is lost forever and a day." From un- 
der the seat of the buckboard he unrolled a 
short cloak and threw it in Moorish style across 
his shoulders, lifted his sombrero, revealing a 
nobly turned head with dashes of gray in the 
blue-black hair, and his face resumed its expres- 
sion of habitual melancholy. As he walked ofl" 
to the shadow of a great rock the alumnus from 
Colorado college, who knows it all, said in a 
loud whisper, " There goes Don Pomposo. He 
feels like the Corliss engine at the Centennial." 

The old bachelor shot the fledgling a glance 
that should have killed him, but the youth, 
though poor by nature and exhausted by culti- 
vation, was wiry and did not fall asunder. In 
fact he never flinched. My thoughts wandered 
from the gay company and the man who had no 
respect for " the stranger within the gates," to 
the lone exile and the varied fortunes at which 
he had hinted, and I said aloud, "The Senor 
Oreto looks like a man who has a history." 

And he has. 

I dismiss the picnic in the brilliant periods of 
the Pharos of the Occident. The editor-in- 
chief, being also an insurance agent, naturally 



A Frontier Idyl. 259 

dealt in large figures, and gave free rein to his 
warm, not to say fiery imagination : " The picnic 
of last week was an event long to be remem- 
bered. The day was beautiful, nature enchant- 
ing, woman divine. Old Baldy lifted his rugged 
front and snowy crown before us, and the river 
sung its sweetest cadence. Among distinguished 
guests present we name the fascinating Gonzalez 
Felipe Oreto, a cosmopolitan born in old Castile, 
the friend of our artist, James Brown. For 
aesthetic culture, refinement of manner and gen- 
eral elegance the versatile Castilian has few 
equals and no superiors. Rumor has it he will 
soon lead to the altar a fair widow well known 
to our city, and we learn with extreme pleasure 
that he has been prevailed on to cast in his lot 
with us and become a citizen of the most desira- 
ble of all the territories." 

From this time the popularity of the delight- 
ful Gonzalez Felipe Oreto steadly increased. 
The young ladies gazed at him with undisguised 
admiration, the mothers smiled on him, but his 
attentions were too evenly distributed to indicate 
the least preference. One day he dashed all 
hopes by publishing in XhQ Pharos of the Occident 
the poem given below. He told his landlady, in 
the deepest confidence, it was addressed to a 
noble lady of Valencia, who had deigned to 
give him a sweet souvenir in return for his verses 
and present. 

My reader need hardly be told it was all over 
town before night — that pretty secret of Oreto's. 

TO ISABELLA RASCON— WITH A SHELL. 

The years have brought you many gifts 

Since first you heard tliem tell 
How the voice of the sea is hid 

In the windings of a shell. 
And where'er it may he exiled, 

From its own warm Eastern main, 
Bend your ear to the crystal cell, 

And you hear the sea again. 



26o The Land of the Pueblos. 

I list to the murmurous sound 

But it never sliapes one word, 
I cannot guess what it would tell, 

That echo always heard. 
Does it speak of the strange, rich life 

Far down in the surging waves, 
Where purple mullet and gold fish rove 

The depths of coral caves ? 

Where Ocean's throbbing heart is stilled, 

And wandering Peri's rest, 
'Mid the pearl and amber jewels 

He loves to wear in his breast? 
Perchance the mellow strain was caught 

From the song of mermaid fair, 
Dreamily chanting, as she smoothed 

The rings of her long, wet hair. 

Or, lingering yet, the echo faint 

Of a life once held within. 
Some hidden shape that breathed and died 

Afar from the breakers din. 
Never had Sultan roof like this, 

Never king such castle wall, 
What was it wrouglit this wondrous dome 

And tilled this crystal hall ? 

Deserted now, but whispering low 

The secret hid in the sea. 
Ask what the mystic music means, 

And it answers, ceaselessly, 
With that weird song,— tender and low 

As the voice of brooding dove 
Who murmurs but a single note, 

Keynote of life— it is Love. 

Ah, when you hear that pleading sound. 

Dream not of siren or sea. 
Believe it the spirit of Love, 

Forever singing— of me. 

Some weeks after the picnic I sat working a 
highly useless lamp mat in my parlor, which in 
pleasant Mexican fashion is divided from the 
office by a curtained doorwa}^ There passed 
the barred window a dapper little man, whipping 
his boot with a short riding whip as he went 
along, whom I recognized as a government agent 
from Los Indios. I heeded not the conversa- 
tion, easily overheard, or rather the monologue 
which languished, till a sudden animation of 
voice betrayed the true purpose of the visitor as 
he asked, " Was there a fellow hangin' 'round 
here not long ago, calling himself Oreto ; a sort 
of literary and sentimental adventurer, pretending 
to be in heavy mourning ? " 



The Pimos. 261 

" Yes, he had quite a turn for story telling and 
amusing children. The caballero appears to 
have fallen on evil times — a sad face, wouldn't be 
a bad model for the Master of Ravenswood." 

" Exactly ; his face is mighty sad about this 
time. Interested friends have taken secure 
boarding for him and relieved him of his wig and 
big diamond ring — the property of a lady in 
Zuloago. His real name is Gomez, a gambler 
and murderer from the city of Mexico. He ran 
off to Chihuahua, which soon got too hot to hold 
him and his little games, moved on to Los Indios, 
where he played three card monte once too 
often for even territorial morality, and the noble 
hidalgo is now smiling his melancholy smile 
behind the grated windows of the county jail." 

" He had rather an agreeable manner," said 
the listener with a long yawn, " but I never took 
much stock in the man." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE PIMOS. 

The minds of men untrained are strangely 
alike. There is such sameness of arts, customs, 
inventions, such likeness in their religious beliefs 
under like stages of development, we must reach 
the conclusions that on subjects of deep human 
interest certain ideas are inherent in human 
hearts, despite alien blood and long epochs of 
separation. All barbarians have their priests or 
medicine men and prophets, are firm believers in 
necromancy, incantations, the power of witch- 
craft, and have deep faith in the great Spirit as 
the peculiar guardian of their race. Some tribes 
have a fear of the devil who must be worshipped 



262 The Land of the Pueblos. 

in order to be propitiated. With them old times 
are best, and all traditions run back to a golden 
age of innocency in a Region of Delight where 
the rivers sparkled with sweet water, the maize 
was always ripe, and high born warriors revelled 
and feasted on the game ever in sight. There 
was no work, no disease, no old age. This 
Elysium was lost by crime, and the Arcadian 
days ended forever. The sinful w^orld was de- 
stroyed by a Flood from which only one prophet 
and his family escaped. Every Rocky Mountain 
tribe has its legend of the deluge and belief in 
the second coming of the Divine Man w^ho is to 
right all wrongs, correct all miseries and mis- 
takes; returning some bright morning to renew 
the dull world to youth, and then Paradise will 
be regained. For this revelation they wait, as 
the prophetic souls were found waiting to be 
guided by the star which led to the divine child 
of Mary. 

The Pueblos jealously guard their wretched 
little chapels (estiifas) from the prying eyes of 
strangers, and the gentlest of visitors is rebuffed 
by their dumb secrecy. In different ways I have 
gathered many traditions. Some are childish 
and witless to my understanding ; others wear- 
ing symbolic veils are graceful as the Greek 
myths, and hold a significance as rich. Fables 
of the nomads will do for another day. The 
Pueblos take our attention first. The great var- 
iety of climate in North America produces 
various habits of hfe which temper and color the 
fables ; and I believe there is no myth without 
some meaning. The vapory conceits we treat so 
lightly were not empty phantasms to the brain 
that shaped them in the beginning, and some 
heart has thrilled to each airy, insubstantial 
legend. 

Certain old instincts run in all bloods. The 



The Pimos. 263 

inborn desire of the soul to account for its origin, 
to ask whence come I, what ani I, perplexes the 
bewildered savage burrowing in his cave as it 
did the learned questioners, a mixed multitude 
crowding the Academy, reverently listening to 
the wondrous maid of Alexandria — Hypatia the 
Beautiful. 

What is truth ? asked the Governor of Judea 
as truth Incarnate stood before him in the Judg- 
ment Hall; and men are yet demanding of 
science, nature, philosophy, the origin of being, 
the destinies, the soul and its limitations. Turn- 
ing from the seen to the unseen, from the outer 
to the inner life, from the tangible to the unreal, 
longing to know the beginning and the end of 
all. It is the old yearning to be as God ; old as 
the first man. To comprehend the stirring of 
the divinity within, which neither feeds nor 
sleeps but lives on separate from the body, opens 
endless questioning. This is the study of sages ; 
about it the wisest debate and ponder, and of it 
the savage, blanketless and naked, where the soft 
seasons allow him to roam, asks with a blind 
ignorance infinitely pathetic. 

To him the hidden forces which rule the uni • 
verse are divinities to be entreated by prayer, 
propitiated by sacrifice and offerings. The sav- 
age's whole life is penetrated by religion, from 
the hard little cradle to which he is swathed, to 
the shallow pit where he lies uncoffined when 
life's struggle is over. 

The tribes near Santa Feand the larger Amer- 
ican towns of New Mexico have mixed the relig- 
ion of Christ with the old superstitions in a 
curious, almost painful manner. I once visited 
Tesuque with a view to gaining some knowledge 
of their primitive ceremonials. The usual pro- 
tracted smoking was indulged in ; there followed 
a stupid meaningless silence, considered the 



264 The Land of the Pueblos. 

heigiit of politeness ; then we partook of cold 
reft-eshments consisting of little apples carefully 
wiped on the sheepskin which covered baby's 
cradle as a blanket. We climbed the rickety 
ladders^ admired the excellence of the bearskins, 
counted the bags of shelled corn and rough pot- 
teries baked in their mud furnaces, surveyed a 
chromo in feverish colors named the Queen of 
Heaven, and when the time was ripe I modestly 
inquired if we might be permitted to visit the 
estufa. The head man of the tribe (cacique) 
whom we named Hiawatha, smiled blandly, 
showing ivory white teeth without a flaw, and 
said '*Si, Signora," with a cheerful alacrity quite 
foreign to the usual aboriginal stoicism. We fol- 
lowed him into the courtyard and Minnehaha 
followed us and stonily stared. The dusky 
maiden in the march of progress is escaping 
from buckskin draperies. She wears the gar- 
ment called by the French mtimate, skirt of 
Navajo blanket, black ground with tracings of 
red embroidery, not unlike the famihar Greek 
pattern, calico shawl gay as the scarf of Iris. 
She is without beauty of any sort ; is raw boned 
and high shouldered, inclining to fat ; of an 
ashy sunburnt skin, flat face, high cheek bones, 
thick lips, mannish gait, harsh voice. She is 
nearly akin (if there's anything in likeness) to 
the Mongolian Ah Sin, and to ward ofl" the sun 
that day carried a yellow parasol over her heavy 
head. They all stared unmoved as we climbed a 
ladder leaning against the side of a high pen 
made of pine logs and mud plaster, — a roofless 
enclosure perhaps eighteen feet square. As we 
looked down, a number of birds like swallows 
flew out, and save their mud-built nests against 
the logs the ancient estufa was empty. The old 
arrow-maker was joking when he conducted us 
to the altar place ; the shrine was abandoned, the 



The Pimos. 265 

sacred fire was dead, the secret temple with all 
its holy and guarded mysteries was laid open to 
women even ! It was plain the Queen of 
Heaven had usurped the place of the lord of life 
and light. The chief smiled broadly and Minne- 
haha wrapped the pink calico rebosa round her 
head and laughed as if she would die. I hate to 
be beaten in this way, and while the gentlemen 
went off to look at a bear skin, I approached 
the youthful princess in the attitude of inter- 
viewer. *' Gentle maiden," I said, mustering my 
small stock of Spanish, '' do you remember when 
the Montezuma fire burned in this deserted 
estufaf' 

'* Si, Signora." 

" Was it many years ago ? " 

" Si, sigiiora." 

" Perhaps fifteen years ? " (insinuatingly). 

** Si, signora." 

" Ah, can you remember so long ? What sort 
of wood was consecrated to the shrine ? " 

" Si, sigfiora. " 

** Did it flame up to the roof, or was it merely 
a bank of coals; your mother" (tenderly) *<has 
told you of it I know." 

" Si, signora." 

*' Then tell me all you know, if it will not 
trouble you too much, and I promise you a beau- 
tiful string of blue beads." 

" Si, sigfiora." 

This intellectual feast was broken up by an 
untimely giggle from a gentle maiden not of 
aboriginal blood, and we made our adieux. I 
afterward learned the sweet girl was only sham- 
ming,; she understood Spanish well enough, but 
chose this pretense to outwit strangers. A dis- 
tinguished success. 

We were completely floored and made haste 
to cover our retreat by leaving the mud-walled 



266 The Land of the Pueblos. 

village for a nooning and lunch under a clump 
of gnarled cedars hard by. The Indian is not 
disappearing at a satisfactory rate before the 
march of civilization. A swarm of children, the 
dirtiest and raggedest imaginable, followed us 
and held out their hands for the remains of our 
lunch. The biscuits were snatched by a youth- 
ful Indigene like the greedy boy of the First 
Reader who refused to give his dear playmates a 
crumb of his cake, and I had to fairly slap his 
hands to make him divide. He then swallowed 
the lemon rinds and would have devoured the 
sardine boxes if he could. So much alike are 
the sons of men ! 

To reach the old superstitions in their purity 
we must push away from the track of the loco- 
motive ; far as possible from censer and cross, 
parish priest and Protestant missionary. So we 
set out with the determination of the mythic 
Roton, who resolved to go till he arrived 
at the roof of heaven ; away to the Moquis 
of the North and the Papagos of the South. 
Below the Gila dwell \n close neighborhood 
the Maricopas and the Pimos, or as the old 
Spaniards wrote it Pimas, whom they found three 
hundred years ago irrigating the lands and rais- 
ing two crops of corn a year, just as they do 
now. The Coco-Maricopas are a branch of the 
Pueblos, and these tribes inhabit a large region, 
mostly perfect desert, between the head of the 
Gulf of California and that extensive cordiliera 
of which the Sierra Catalina forms the most 
v/esterly range. A volcanic country in which 
since the introduction of man, the surface of the 
the earth as well as the climate has undergone 
great changes. 

After straining over scorching deserts, alkali 
plains, sage bush and greasewood wastes, it was 
a deep pleasure to rest our tired eyes on the 



The Pimos. 267 

bright corn lands on both sides of the river Gila, 
which runs through the Pimo reservation about 
twenty-five miles. The three great aceqidas 
with their various branches comprise nearly five 
hundred miles, and extend over a tract of land 
eighteen miles in length. The fields are fenced 
v/ith crooked sticks, wattled with brush, mainly 
of the thorny cactus and mezquit. The Salic or 
rather Slavic law prevails among the aborigines. 
Instead of studying graceful culture and decora- 
tive art, the farming is done by the women. 
When harvest time comes, the men turn into the 
fields and help, besides lightening the labor by 
standing around in the shade and looking on, or 
sprawling on the floor swinging the baby as it 
hangs suspended in a box, hanging by a cord 
from the ceiling. Sometimes the mother carries 
a large basket on her head and the papoose sit- 
ting on a sort of side-bustle astride her hip. A 
civilized baby would tumble off instantly, but the 
native infant holds on to her smooth, shining sides 
in an attitude wonderfully like the missing link, 
our Simian ancestor, riding the calico pony in 
gay circus ring. This baby does not cut mon- 
key-shines, but stares at the stranger as stolidly 
as his father and mother. The Pimo customs 
are like the Coco-Maricopas in everything but 
burial rites. They bury their dead but their 
neighbors burn them. The Maricopa bodies are 
placed on a funeral pyre of resinous wood and 
utterly consumed, in classic fashion. 

Reporters say the mourners go into a profound 
mourning of tar. On inquiry I learned the 
*♦ tar " is a portion of the ashes of the dear 
deceased mixed with the dissolved gum of the 
mezquit, (a species of acacia which yields a 
concrete juice like gum arable). They smear 
their faces with the hideous plaster, and let it 
remain as a mark of deep grief till it wears away. 



268 The Land of the Pueblos. 

A widow, the next day after her bereavement, is 
offered in market by the town crier to any one 
who wants a wife. If an able-bodied squaw, 
good at hoeing, and stout enough to balance the 
baby on top of the basket of corn overhead, she 
is usually courted, '' wooed, won, married and 
all " within a few days, though custom allows 
her to continue the periodic howling and tar 
deep-mourning several days after the new honey- 
moon begins to shine. 

I was charmed at thought of being among 
Pagans assisting at such heathen obsequies, and 
felt it the spot to find the ancient lore 1 sought, 
through many a weary mile of lava bed and 
tropic scorch. I was among the changeless, 
unimpressible American Indians, living among 
demons and goblins, spirits of earth, air, fire, 
water, whose beliefs are untainted by mixture of 
Christian ideas. Here I discovered the flickering, 
mythic lights which produce such lovely effects, 
changing gods to men, and making demigods of 
heroes. Among these untutored children of 
nature, every misty outline and vapory mountain 
haze might be an aboriginal soul floated out into 
the unknown dark on its wanderings toward the 
bright sun house. In the shadows of vast canons 
the block elves have their haunts, and lie in wait 
for bewildered spirits, and hurl spectral missiles 
along the pathless space surrounding •' the dance 
house of the ghosts." The Pueblos are ail sun- 
worshippers, and the Pimos tell us the road to 
the sun house is beset with perils. In the dark- 
ness of the dread mystery of death, deep waters 
are to be crossed, many-headed monsters bellow 
and roar, fire flames before the eyes, and whirl- 
winds lift the affrighted spirit from his feet and 
toss him in mid air. Four is a sacred number 
with them, derived from adoration of the four 
cardinal points; the soul flutters about the body 



The Pimos. 269 

four days, and sometimes stones are thrown across 
the warrior's grave to scare away the evil spirits. 
In the unlighted valley the brave must be pro- 
vided with a pipe for his solace, with weapons 
suited to his rank, choice armor approved to fit 
him as he enters the kingdom of souls. Lifeless, 
he may yet grope through the cold clay, and 
touching with icy fingers the trusted arms, will 
not tremble in defenceless march through the 
horror of the awful shades. 

Is this not the instinct of the antique Scythian 
buried on the field with the blade in which vic- 
tory still lingers ? The pathos of the singer 
breaking his heart and harp together. 

" Lay his sword by his side, it liath served him too well 

Not to rest near his pillow helow ; 
To the last moment true, from his hand ere it fell 

Its point was still turned to a flying foe. 
Fellow-lab'rers in life, let them slumber in death, 

Side by side, as becomes the reposing brave,— 
That sword which he loved still unbroke in its sheath, 

And himself unsubdued in his grave." 

Four days the howlers howl, and further to 
cheer the dread passage four nights a fire is kin- 
dled on the warrior's grave to open a path for 
the bhnded footsteps in the fearful '' dead man's 

journey," and lead them to the sun, the safe, 
final resting place. There the chief will take up 
his weapons again and spend a blissful eternity 
fighting his old enemies, the Yumas, and we may 
be sure slaying his thousands and revelling in 
blood, like the Viking in the halls of the Val- 
halla, with his comrades hacked to pieces in 
many a morning fight, but always ready with 
whole limbs and flashing, undinted armor, to 
appear at dinner. Food is placed on the fresh 
earth, the best corn bread, flesh of antelope and 

jars of water, that the lone one may be com- 
forted by gifts from the world he has left. These 
tender offerings bestowed, the property of the 
hero is portioned out to the tribe, fields divided 



27© The Land of the Pueblos. 

among those who need land, his grain, chickens, 
dogs, bows, etc., fairly distributed. No wrang- 
ling among heirs, no lawyers to absorb estates, 
all is done fairly and equitably, in a submission 
to precedent worthy our imitation. 

Nor do the Pimos refuse to be comforted. 
Cattle are driven up and slaughtered, and deeply 
burdened with sorrow, every man loads down his 
squaw with beef, and feasts whole days on funeral 
baked meats. Dare I disgust my dear friend, 
the classic reader, by saying these barbarian feasts 
are reminders of the tremendous banquet in the 
pavihon of Agamennon, where the *' steer of 
full five years " was killed, skinned, and cooked 
before the eyes of the Grecians. 

Homeric champions — Trojan peers and scep- 
tered kings of Greece — were not made wretched 
by indigestion, and I suspect (low be it spoken !) 
they took pepsin in the natural state. With their 
enviable appetites they were ready to eat off- 
hand; the squarest of meals never came amiss, 
and their capacity for tough beef, rare done, was 
prodigious and unfailing. So far very like our 
Rocky mountaineers, but unhappily the red war- 
riors are not embalmed in verse by the imperish- 
able poets. 

When the Indian woman dies no high sepul- 
chral feasts, no games and honors, such as Ilion 
to her hero paid. With scant ceremony she is 
wrapped in her poor shroud, the moccasins of 
her own make fastened to her shapely feet ; the 
carrying-strap worn across the forehead, and the 
paddle go with the cold hands. Sad emblem of 
woman's destiny in the wilderness ; pathetic 
tokens that even in the mystic land of shades she 
must be the silent, uncomplaining slave of her 
brutish, savage lord. 

This is the Pimo legend of the Creation : The 
world was made by an earth prophet. In the begin- 



The Pinios. Tj\ 

ning it stretched fair and frail as a line of light 
across the darkness of empty space. A wise 
Sagamore lived in the Gila valley, and one night 
a royal eagle came to the door and warned him 
of a deluge close at hand. The prophet wrapped 
his mantle of fur around him, for it was winter, 
and laughed the gray messenger to scorn. The 
kingly bird shook his white head, spread wide his 
wings and soared away to heaven. Again the 
eagle came with his warning cry, the waters were 
near and would soon burst overhead ; but the 
sachem drowsily groaned at the wakening voice 
and turned on his bed of buffalo skins and slept. 
Three times the broad wings shadowed the 
sleeper, and the friendly voice entreated him to 
flee the wrath of the gods, but the prophet gave 
no heed. Then quick as the eagle disappeared 
in the blue and starry silence, there came thun- 
der, hghtning, and a mountain of water like an 
earthquake overspread the valley of Gila, and the 
morning sun shone on only one man saved from 
destruction by floating on a ball of resin — Szeukha, 
the son of the Creator. He was enraged at the 
royal bird, thinking him the mover of the flood, 
and made a rope ladder of tough bark like the 
woodbine, climbed the naked, riven cliff where 
the eagle lived, and slew him. He then raised 
to life the mangled bodies of the slain on which 
the eagle had preyed, and sent them out to 
re-people the world. In the centre of the vast 
eyrie he found a woman, the eagle's wife, and 
their child. These he helped down the rope lad- 
der and sent on their way, and from them are 
descended that race of wise men called Hoho- 
cam, ancients or grandfathers, who were guided 
in all their wanderings by an eagle. Southward 
they marched past forests of oak, sycamore, 
cedar and flowering trees, past mountains of 
crystal and gold, and rivers murmurous willi song 



272 The Land of the Pueblos. 

flowing over beds of stars, till they reached a 
deep blue lake kissed by soft winds, sparkling in 
the sunlight. On its borders they planted a city 
with streets of water — old Tenochtitlan, which 
white men call Mexico. Through the uncounted 
centuries since the deluge, Szeukha has not 
dropped out of Indian memory. 

Because he killed the bird of prophecy he had 
to do a sort of penance, which was never to 
scratch himself with his nails but always with a 
little stick. The custom is still adhered to by 
the unchanging Pimos, and a splinter of wood, 
renewed every fourth day, is carried for this pur- 
pose, stuck in their long coarse hair and plied 
with extreme energy and enjoyment. Stern are 
the duties of the historian, and truth obliges me 
to record the Pimos do not scratch their heads 
for nothing. 

They are good fighters, and liave been a wall 
of defence against the incursions of Apaches, at 
one time the only protection for travellers 
between Fort Yuma and Tucson. They appear 
comfortable in their huts, — which are snug dens 
of oval shape made of mud and reeds thatched 
with tide or wheat straw, — quietly contented with 
their industrious wives and their own lazy selves. 
They make a kind of wine like sour cider, not 
nearly so good though, and quaff the vinegar 
bowl with sombre hilarity after the corn bread 
and mutton are disposed at dinner. 

The tributaries of the Gila bear sweet, soft, 
meandering Spanish names which I forget. They 
are rivers of the leaky sort, disappearing by 
fitful turns and capriciously starting up 
again in the deeply worn channels. Even in its 
best strength the Gila (river of swift water) is not 
so large as an Indiana creek which we would 
blush to call river. It contains three kinds of 
fish ; trout, buffalo, and humpback, all equally 



The Pimos. 273 

mean, of slippery, muddy, flavor and most inferior 
quality. 

Not far from the Pimo villages, eleven in num- 
ber, are the written rocks, mentioned in the 
oldest histories and described at length by the 
early explorers and the modern traveller. At 
the base of an immense bluff are heaps of 
boulders covered with figures of men and animals, 
rudely carved with some coarse instruments. 
Uncouth shapes of birds, footprints, snakes, and 
the ever recurring print of a moccasin, indicative 
of marching. Many writers attach a value to 
these ancient inscriptions ; one old Spanish ad- 
venturer discerned in them letters like the Gothic, 
Hebrew and Chaldean characters. They are not 
there to-day ; among hundreds of piled-up 
boulders and detached stones there is no tracery 
like the letters of any known language. Some 
of the markings are centuries old and partly 
effaced, others written over and over again. The 
under sides of the rocks, also, are sculptured 
where it would be impossible to cut them as they 
lie, and some weigh many tons. These last 
must have fallen from the mountain after the 
hieroglyphs were made. There can be no doubt 
of their great antiquity and the large numbers of 
carved stones prove it to have been a resort ages 
on ages ago, but I doubt the importance of the 
lines, to me meaningless zigzags. Indians are the 
laziest of mortals, and in their childish way love 
to scribble worthless signs, rude pictography on 
their skins and the hides of animals, their walls 
and potteries. The "Pedros Pintados" which 
took such hold on Spanish imagination were 
probably boundery lines between tribes, and the 
tortoise, snake and so on are the ancient tribal 
symbols, treaties possibly. If they had the deep 
significance claimed by easily excited chroniclers 
the story would run like this : The sons of the 
18 ' 



274 The Land of the Pueblos. 

North have waded a lake of blood, have swept 
like the whirlwind across the Sierras ; the bow 
has rattled, the arrow flew. We have broken 
the bones of the Apaches, scooped out their eyes 
and warmed our hands in their smoking blood. 
We have scalped the proud warriors and beaten 
out the brains of their children. Whoop la ! 
Now let the earth tremble, for the wolves are let 
loose on the slain ! 

There are widely scattered ruins in the Gila 
valleys showing it was once densely populated, 
but the remains are so monotonous they com- 
mand little interest. The visitor who has seen 
one has the type of all. A certain melancholy 
pathos invests every ruin; houses where men 
have lived and died are more or less haunted, but 
the relics of New Mexico and Arizona are desti- 
tute of anything like grace or comeliness. The 
makers and builders never got beyond the rough 
adobe, the stone hatchet and flint arrow-head, 
and nothing is proved by them except that this 
country has been inhabited from a remote period 
by a people not differing greatly from the 
Pueblos of to-day. 

As we journeyed up the valley we saw herds 
of antelopes, always too distant for a shot. The 
Rocky mountain antelope is a most beautiful and 
graceful animal, of compact form and exceeding 
strength. The lithe limbs are delicate and fleet, 
feet small and elegant, tail short and tufted. It 
is light fawn color, under parts white ; its 
luminous dark eyes are like those of the gazelle 
of the Orient. Shy and not easily approached 
the Indians domesticate them by trapping when 
very young. They have the gentlest, most 
confiding way of laying their heads in your lap, 
and looking up with the lustrous eyes which have 
furnished poets with lovely imagery from the 
days of Solomon to the nights of Byron. I 



The Pimos. 275 

know no creature with such an appealing manner 
and such swift grace of movement ; they speed 
across the still, wide plain, in the farness of the 
distance appearing like low flying birds. 

Though we are not in the Navajo country we 
see now and then their famous blanket, striped in 
gayest blue, yellow and red, this last color so 
dear to the Indian eye, made from ravelling out 
flannel which they buy of the white traders. 
The dyes are vegetable and absolutely fadeless. 
The blanket is coarse, hard and heavy ; a good 
one will shed water like rubber, and wear a great 
while as a horse or saddle blanket. The Indian 
women spin wool in a slow, simple way by rolling 
in their hands, and they spend all their spare 
time for months in making one blanket which 
may sell for thirty-five dollars, or if very brilliant 
in color and close in texture, for fifty or a hundred 
dollars. When on the march even, the Navajo 
woman has her little contrivance for weaving, on 
the mule with her, or across her shoulder if on 
foot, and in five minutes after the halt is 
sounded she sits under a tree weaving away as 
composedly as though she had been at it for 
hours. The loom is nothing but sticks placed 
horizontally, one at top, two at bottom, far 
enough apart to accommodate warp of the 
blanket's length or breadth. Between these the 
warp is stretched, and to one straps are attached 
to throw over the limb of a tree. At the bottom 
are other straps, for the feet to operate in beating 
up the filling. In her silent, joyless, persevering 
fashion the work goes steadily on, and the weaver 
is satisfied to see it grow at a rate incalculably 
slow. 

A, sufficient measure of civilization is the 
treatment of women, and among Apaches we 
find the deepest degradation. The Pueblo wives 
are incomparably better off than those of the 



2/6 The Land of the Pueblos. 

nomads. The contrast between them and their 
sisters of the fairer race is more painful than that 
between men of the two races. I have seen 
young hunters with stately forms, erect, Hthe and 
sinewy, and one warrior who might have been a 
model for Uncas, the favorite hero of our early 
friend Cooper. 

We all remember the anecdote Gait tells of 
Benjamin West. When in Rome his friends 
agreed that the Apollo of Vatican should be the 
first statue shown to the young Philadelphia 
Quaker. It was enclosed in a case, and to try 
the effect on him suddenly the keeper threw open 
the doors. "A young Mohawk warrior," ex- 
claimed West. 

But the likeness is only in the body. The 
ideal head of the Apollo with its clustering locks, 
the exquisite sensitive face with its delicate 
molding of lip and chin, the Phidian forehead and 
nose, are in highest contrast with the sensual, 
sluggish hneaments of the red man. 

Among the various tribes there is a dire mono- 
tory, and in nothing are they more alike than in a 
lofty scorn of work. The man glories in his lazi- 
ness, the woman exults in her slavery. I have seen 
an Indian try a heavy lift and set the bag of corn 
down again with a '* Ugh ! squaw's work." If 
we insinuate he should do the little hoeing for 
their scant supply of beans the woman resents 
the idea. " Would you have a warrior work like 
a squaw ? " is her indignant response to the sug- 
gestion. 

I once saw a married couple trudging home, 
if their cold, smoky, dirty den may be called by 
that dear name. The husband, perhaps twenty 
steps in advance of the woman who bore on her 
back a bag of corn. The noble red man (see J. 
F. Cooper), waited for her to come up to him, 
she hastening her pace as she saw it. Then he 



The Pimos. 277 

slung nis rifle on her pack, folded his arms 
across his noble breast, and strode forward with 
easy gliding step, in untrammeled dignity. How 
I longed to hand that noble red man over to the 
mercies of a woman's rights convention. 

The husband may disfigure or insult the wife 
at pleasure, divorce her without form or cere- 
mony by a mere separation, and she has no pro- 
tection or appeal ; sometimes his conduct drives 
her to suicide. In divorce it is the unwritten 
law of the wilderness that children go with their 
mother. Among the wandering tribes mother 
and baby are not divided even in death. A mer- 
ciful barbarity gives one blow with the hatchet, 
and the little one rests with the best love it can 
know on earth. They have few children ; four 
are a large family, twins are unknown, nearly all 
reach maturity. Among the wild tribes where 
polygamy is the rule it is not a cause of com- 
plaint among the women, from the fact that it 
implies a division of labor, and the latest wife 
lords it over her predecessors. Even among sav- 
ages there is no love like the last love. 

The Pimo Indians are not made of " rose-red 
clay," they are dark brown, differing in com- 
plexion from the Appalachians east of the Rocky 
mountains and the olive hues of the California 
tribes. Historians say they have ever been the 
the most active and industrious of the Pueblos ; 
still that does not imply the energy and activity 
of the white race. They sit for hours in front 
of their huts, motionless as a group of petrifac- 
tions. In a mild climate their wants are few and 
simple, and a little of this world's goods obtained 
without much work and less worry is sufficient 
for the calm philosophers who despise the arts 
of the white race and steadily march in the paths 
of the forefathers. 

I must not leave their country without men- 



27§ The Land of the Pueblos. 

tion of the wooing of the young Pimo warrior. 
All Pueblos have but one wife, and no girl is 
obliged to marry against her will, however eligi- 
ble the parents may consider any offer. If his 
bent of love be honorable, his purpose marriage, 
Romeo first wins over the parents by making 
them presents, such delicacies as pumpkins, 
beans, coyote skins, or if he is very wealthy a 
pony. Then, in banged locks and straggling 
braids of hair, he sits at the door of the lady of 
his choice serenading her for hours, day after 
day, tooting with all his might on a flute of cane, 
an instrument of torture with four holes in it. 
He hides himself in a bush and like the nightin- 
gale " sings darkling." Sometimes JuHet is a 
coquette and takes no notice of the tender 
demonstration, leaving him to keep up the plain- 
tive, shrill noise till 

" Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." 

If no notice is taken of the appeal there is no 
further sign ; he may hang up his flute, with its 
bright pencillings and gayly tufted fringes, and 
there is no mortification in the rejection. Should 
she smile on his suit she comes out of the coop- 
like den and the ceremony is ended. Romeo 
takes her to his house and the bride is at home. 
If he is a man of moderate means the house is 
built of four upright stakes, forked at one end, 
driven into the ground ; across these other sticks 
are laid to support the roof, which may be of 
corn shucks, or straw or rushes. If he is am- 
bitious to have a lasting, palatial mansion it will 
be walled round with stakes, plastered and roofed 
with mud. An opening for a door is left about 
three feet high to creep in at. These residences 
are from five to seven feet high, so one cannot 
stand upright in every one. Adjoining the wig- 
wam is a bower of boughs open on all sides ; in 



The Pimos. 279 

l:his shady lodge are the few potteries in which 
Juliet does the cooking, and here the happy pair 
sit on their heels when at rest, and Romeo 
smokes while she grinds the corn in the metate 
of stone. 

It is expected that the bridegroom will pr/ 
the parents all his means admit to compensate 
them for the loss of a hand in the cornfield. The 
Indian wife never hears of protoplasm, equal 
suffrage, social science and the like. She often 
builds the wigwam after Romeo has cut the 
poles, always bears them on her shoulders in the 
march, plows the fields with a crooked stick, 
raises the beans, hoes the corn, bakes the cakes, 
without a complaint. If her beady, black eyes 
mark his coming and look brighter when he 
comes I cannot tell why. He is sullen and still, 
a dusky shape, the very perfection of gloomy 
indifference. Perhaps if he eats the tortillas with 
an appetite her soul is glad and she has her 
reward. If she is content, why sow the seeds 
or dissatisfaction by telling her she is a beast of 
burden and he is a beast of prey ? 

The trip through the Pimo country was made 
memorable by my first bivouac. 'Twere vain to 
tell thee all ; how a mule drank alkali water, 
swelled up and died in an hour, how part of the 
party had to push forward with a disabled team, 
leaving a broken wagon and luggage to wait the 
relief, and how a long, hot day brought us to a 
government station. This was a mud shanty 
thatched with cedar boughs and plastered Avith 
clay. The edifice was divided into three rooms, 
the first was a stable where a gay little pony was 
pacing round and round without a halter. The 
next was the guest chamber. As I approached, 
there issued from it a fragrance, the triple extract 
of raw hide, burnt bacon and old pipe. The 
appartmen^ perhaps sixteen feet square, was 



?So The Land of the Pueblos. 

without door or window. The " accommoda- 
tions " were a mud fireplace in the corner where 
one might make coffee and fry eggs, and a pile 
of sheepskins on which the visitor might spread 
his blanket and sleep, — if he could. The cedar 
and mud roof slanted as though it would tumble 
down any minute. The clay floor was unswept, 
the walls fringed with cobwebs and adorned with 
strings of red pepper, saddles and bridles. In 
one corner lay bags of shelled corn ; on a swing- 
ing shelf were newspapers, an odd volume of 
Oliver Twist and sporting magazines. The third 
room was sacred to herdsmen and rancheros. 
The keeper of this lodge in a vast wilderness 
was a retired minstrel, and his photograph as 
jolly endman broadly smiled upon us, dangling 
from enormous deer's antlers which upheld deco- 
rative art in lieu of a mantel piece. I took 
peaceable possession of the only chair and my 
fellow traveller through life's journey lolled in 
luxurious ease on the end of a candlebox, while 
we surveyed the " accommodations." There 
were three chromos of Evangeline on the walls : 
presumably the peddler closed out his stock 
there. One picture of that melancholy maiden 
sitting on a nameless grave is depressing ; two 
are hardly endurable ; three are heart-breaking. 
I gave way before them and said, *' We will try 
an Indian lodge under the open sky." My reso- 
lution made the idea at once become a pleasant 
thought. In a barren country the householder, 
a pilgrim and a stranger, develops a versatile 
genius second only to that of Bernini the Floren- 
tine sculptor, artist, poet, musician, who gave an 
opera in Rome where he built the theater, in- 
vented the engines, cut the statues, painted the 
scenes, wrote the comedy and composed the 
music. In the spirit of communism which per- 
vades the Territories I rummaged the abandoned 



The Pimos. 281 

baggage and found blankets, buffalo robes, a 
mattress, one attenuated pillow stuffed with 
feathers pretty much all quill, made ** riant" by 
a pink calico case ruffled all round. No sham 
about that pillow. 

A clump of stunted pines was the chamber, 
carpeted with the soft needles undisturbed for 
ages. A Navajo blanket made a striped roof, 
its weight a security against puffs of wind even 
\i we had not fastened it with strings and tent 
pins driven into the warm, gravelly sand. The 
pretty recess, so like a play-house, had a fine 
charm ; spicy with the fresh scent of the pines, 
shadowed by a great rock, the pink pillow 
looked rather lumpy but restful and inviting. I 
felt sure there were pleasant dreams, or better 
yet, dreamless sleep in the unexpected luxury. 

While I smoothed its tumbled ruffles the gay 
troubadour came from high pastures with his 
herds to let them drink at the precious spring, 
and then fold them in a corral made of stakes of 
mezquit wattled with cactus. 

The grama grass on which they feed is 
described in the books as incomparably the most 
nutritive in the world, which may account for the 
grand development of bone in the animals 
throughout the region. All the wild grasses of 
the country are peculiar in curing themselves 
in the stalk. The grama bears no flower, shows 
no seed, but seems to reproduce itself from the 
roots by the shooting up of young, green and 
vigorous spires, which are at first inclosed withii 
the sheaths of their old and dried-up predeces- 
sors, which by their growth they split and cast 
to earth, themselves filling their places. The 
vast region swept from immemorial ages by the 
Apaches is covered with this sort of low, mossy 
grass, and it enables those most savage of sav- 
ages to make their wonderful marches with 



282 'J he Lard of the Pusblo:. 

their wiry little ponies, whicli endure extra- 
ordinary fatigue so long as they have this feed :.n 
abundance, and are allowed to crop it from 
native pasturas. 

The troubadour who kept the wayside inn was 
a handsome scamp, a captivating runaway from 
civilization, calling himself John Smith, which 1 
am sure is not his name. He apologized for the 
absence of his cook (who had no existence on 
earth), and in festal mood, with many flour- 
ishes, insisted on displaying his own skill in the 
culinary science. He graduated under the cele- 
brated Micawber many years ago, and would like 
nothing better than a "■ hot supper of his own 
getting up." 

With the help of a Mexican peon, he deftly 
and rapidly concocted and served in the Evange- 
line apartment various poisons, liquid and solid, 
spreading them on a pine table covered with 
newspapers. Conspicuous among the dishes 
were hot death-balls, with lightning zigzags of 
deadly drugs, known on the frontier as " soddy 
biscuit." Under the beguihng name of spring 
lamb we had paid an exhaustive price for a sec- 
tion of ancient ram which might have battered 
the walls of Babylon. Fire made no impression 
on it, and the chops rebounded under the teeth 
like India-rubber. However we had the usual 
reserve of crackers, ham, canned fruit, and I 
drank to the general joy of the whole table in a 
glass of withered lemonade. The gentlemen ate 
with cannibal appetite, and so far from dropping 
dead, as I feared, seemed refreshed by the reflec- 
tion. The banquet ended, we insisted on music 
from the obscured, let me not say fallen, star, and 
the banjo was brought forth from its case under 
the festive board. Brudder Bones had a rich 
and delightful voice, and we listened to him with 
unaffected enjoyment. One by one the herds- 



The Pimos. 283 

men came by leading their lean and thirsty sheep, 
making a picturesque spectacle as they passed to 
the spring. 

Back of the miserable hut stretched a plain, 
level as water, three miles to the foot-hills ; far 
beyond were the Sierras, purple to the snow line, 
then a shining silver chain. Their unspeakable 
beauty haunts me still like some enchanting vis- 
ion in which I beheld a new heaven and a new 
earth. Beyond the bower rose a heap of boul- 
ders, bare except for the tall yucca's cream-white 
blossoms which decked them in bridal bright- 
ness, and a species of night-blooming cereus that 
with the declining day unfolded every petal and 
filled the air with a fragrance like white lilies. 
On a bench in front of the hut sat a prospector 
and the belated travellers ; lounging on blankets 
and skins were half a dozen soldiers, a Pueblo 
Indian, a negro and a Mexican peon. The banjo 
did its best for the musician occupying the can- 
dle box ; I was enthroned in the only chair. A 
mixed company, representative of the border 
races. 

What should we sing but " Tenting to-night 
boys," and " Oft in the stilly night," the twilight 
song with its tender memories of the lost loves 
buried many a year ago ? Lastly, in the solemn 
beauty of the afterglow, we gave " John Brown's 
Body " with a rousing chorus in honor of the 
graves forever green and glorious. 

A line of crimson lights flamed along the 
mountain peaks, then the drop curtain of violet 
and pearl gray fell softly through the speckless 
sapphire and over the darkening hills. 'Twas time 
to say good-night ; most of the herdsmen wrapped 
themselves in blankets and rolled like logs on the 
ground ; the passive ragged peon bowed in cour- 
teous grace with gently spoken adios, and 
lay against the side of the hut, his delicate face 



284 The Land of the Piteblos. 

upturned to the sky. Old uncle Ned made a 
tiny fire of pine cones " to toas my feet, missis," 
as he muffled head and ears in an army coat on 
which a shred of shoulder strap hinted of better 
days. We, too, said '< good-night." Besides the 
old songs my ear was haunted with dim aeolian 
soundings mingling an evening strain from the 
Koran : 

" Have we not given you the earth for a bed, 
And made you husband and wife ? 
And given you sleep for rest, 
And made you a mantle of night?" 

But I could not sleep thus mantled in that 
Eden bower. The air was so electric that five 
lines of fire followed my fingers as I drew them 
across the buffalo robe. I was in that state known 
to most women and a few men when my eyelids 
would not close. I felt as if the seven doors of 
the enchanted lantern were opened and I could 
see all over the world. There was nothing to 
fear, but a sense of strangeness and awe held me. 
The spangled arch which upholds the throne of 
God, — its splendor robbed me of my rest ; 
my spirit was not fitted to the magnificent 
infinite palace. Of the exquisite beauty of that 
balmy semi-tropic night I hardly trust myself to 
speak. Through the soft perfumed dusk, through 
the leafy tent, the stars glowed resplendent. 
None missing there ; the lost Pleiad found her 
sisters; Aldebaran shone in the East; Arcturus 
and his sons ; Orion belted and spurred with jew- 
els. The blanket slipped from its fastenings and 
there was no curtaining to veil the far-off mys- 
tery of my boundless bed-room. The cool night 
oreeze fanned my face as I watched the lofty 
spaces so solemn, so wondrous fair. I had often 
slept in the ambulance with curtains close-but- 
toned ; that was a room. The walls of this apart- 
ment were limitless. 



The Pimos. 285 

Restlessly turning on the pink pillow I thought 
of eyes that are looking down, not up at the 
starry hosts, and the voice now beyond them 
which used to sing to the air of " Bonnie Doon," 

' Forever and foreverraore, 
The star, the star of Bethlehem." 

The goats and sheep were at rest, the hurt 
lamb had ceased its bleat, the light in the ranche 
went out. In the stilly night silence all, save the 
low wind soughing in the pines making midnight 
hush the deeper. The long howl of a dog in the 
distance. Was he barking at the silver boat in 
the blue bay overhead ? What sailors manned 
that fairy craft ? Did they understand the mys- 
teries and could they answer my weary question- 
ings? What saw they in the unfathomable depths? 
and what meant that signal shot from the slender 
bow across the trackless blue, dropping spark- 
les of fire through the dusk ? 

Good night, Good night! 



THE END. 



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